Mark of the Medusa

"The image of the snake was almost like its calling card."

Writer: Mike Tucker

Format: Short Story

Released: September 2017

Printed in: Tales of Terror 05

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Turlough, Kamelion

Synopsis

The Fifth Doctor takes his companions Tegan and Turlough to visit his old friend Vittorio on the night of the opening gala at his new museum of Earth antiquities. Except, Tegan soon goes missing and a familiar enemy returns with a vengeance, intent on gaining physical form once and for all...

Verdict

Mark of the Medusa was a decent little continuation of the Tales of Terror collection of short stories! There definitely felt like a distinct different as we moved into the second third of the book and to the 1980s with the era of the Fifth Doctor and I was glad that the essence of the story captured that era well. I'm never the biggest fan of when the Doctor encounters an old friend that we haven't actually ever met before, especially one that he has met across a number of faces. Is there really that much wiggle room in the first four incarnations for the Doctor to have met Vittorio on a number of occasion that didn't warrant a whole adventure? I'm not so sure about that and it really does happen too often in the more irregular formats for my liking. I liked the idea of Vittorio's museum of Earth wonders and antiquities and the Doctor approving of the collection was very nice, as well as Tegan being used as the basis for all that was going wrong in the twentieth century and what those artefacts were left opposed to. I was not expecting to find Kamelion featured in this story so that was definitely a welcomed addition as he is a very rare companion to find in adventures. The sadness that came with what appeared to only be a short appearance in the form of a page or so was powerful as even though he was a robot and shouldn't have feelings by nature, you could tell there was a lot of disappointment when he was told that he would have to remain inside the TARDIS. The speech from Vittorio at the opening was good and it was interesting to see how it effected Tegan with the talk of wheels and she recognised the words there which was good. I wasn't a fan of having a character by the name of Harry Gordon feature, even if it was only in a small role, as we had just had Toil and Trouble come before this in the collection which featured Harry Sullivan as companion! I think there could definitely be confusion there for readers unfamiliar with the Classic series and/or those reading more than one story a day unlike myself. It just seemed poor editing for me! The use of the Neptune statue in the adventure was good and fitted in well with the story and the museum setting so I enjoyed that. Another element I enjoyed was the description of the Medusa once that arrived into the story. I liked the idea of it actually being Tegan as that was a fun dynamic, but I was actually less pleased when it turned out that it was just Kamelion being controlled by Tegan's subconscious as that didn't make as much sense to me. Finding out that the Medusa was actually the Mara was a really good development given the snake linkage. Using Medusa in a Doctor Who story is hardly original, so the differentiation there was much welcomed. I liked how the events were established as being post-Snakedance, but things were a little vague on how the Mara survived initially. The use of Perseus by Turlough in remembering how to defeat what appeared to be Medusa was good and I also thought the Medusa portion of the illustration was excellent, but the Tegan aspect was not so much. Tegan confronting her duplicate and remembering the way the Mara were defeated in Kinda by not being able to face itself was very good. I enjoyed the ending as well with the Mara being told as being within the TARDIS and waiting patiently for its next attempt to defeat the Doctor. I thought that was good and set things up nicely for a possible return. Overall, a decent little short story! 

Rating: 7/10