Inflicting Christmas

"She's making memories real."

Writer: Dave Sudden

Format: Short Story

Released: October 2020

Printed in: The Wintertime Paradox 03

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Bill

Synopsis 

Did you Davros and the Doctor met for three Christmases, on different planets, across time and space? Have you heard the one about the time the Plasmavores came to pay a festive visit? Or when Madame Vastra fought a cyborg?

The perfect collection of the bleakest – and sometimes brightest – time of the year, these are the tales to get you halfway out of the dark...

Verdict

Inflicting Christmas was another great read to continue my way through The Wintertime Paradox collection! This is shaping up to be a hugely impressive volume of short stories and I liked how the Christmas theme was less drawn upon here. It was very much there, but it wasn’t the main focus which I appreciated as there really is only so much you can do with Christmas and Doctor Who! I was a big fan of getting a new adventure with the Twelfth Doctor and Bill as I think they’re a really underrated pairing and it’s a big shame we only got one series of them on television. There was not even a mention of Nardole here which was a little surprising given that it was clear from references to Empress of Mars that this was quite late in the timeline of Bill’s adventures with Doctor. That was completely fine though! Bill really was able to shine in this story, but I thought the writing of the Twelfth Doctor was equally good in capturing Peter Capaldi’s likeness. The characterisation of the pair was impressive and really drew on their history together. The theme of memory was obviously a big factor in that but the events of The Pilot were clearly weighing hard still with Bill discussing losing her mum. The discussion about good and bad memories was excellent and I liked how Bill used that as a way of dealing with her mum’s death. When that had just happened all of the memories blended into one, but once she was far enough removed from the death she could see that there were good memories with her mum. It was nice that she realised that. I enjoyed her relationship with Ebi and having to draw on her own past was lovely even thought it clearly hurt. Adeyami was an intriguing character and her position at We Create Futures was presented really well. She was very much a businesswoman and hearing how that interfered with her son’s life was a crying shame. I will never understand how people can become so inundated with their work, how can family not be the most important thing? Having her invest in young people’s inventions was good though, and the Doctor critiquing some of the new inventions was magnificent. He took two seconds to tear apart the equations that supposedly proved time travel was impossible. The near future setting of 2045 was amusing and reading now made the mention of Elon Musk tweeting all the more comical! The idea of him being a business rival to Adeyami was fascinating but showed the scale on which she had success. The setting of Dublin Convention Centre was also a lot of fun and a nice niche setting. I’m a huge fan of the city of Dublin so it was nice to revisit it here. I liked how Bill was taken off into the literal memories coming to life in a very dangerous way, and the very concept of reliving memories was certainly something I’d be in favour of happening! It would almost be a form of time travel into the past and it would be so nice to see if memorable events were as we remembered them. The ending was pretty predictable as soon as it was clear that Ebi was the one responsible, but it was a feel good moment for mother and son to be reunited and show much they meant to one another. Overall, a really good read! 

Rating: 8/10