A Day to Yourselves

"I'm going to save someone's Christmas."

Writer: Dave Sudden

Format: Short Story

Released: October 2020

Printed in: The Wintertime Paradox 11

Featuring: Ninth Doctor

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 

A Day to Yourselves was an excellent story to continue my reading of The Wintertime Paradox collection! I’m nearing the end now as this is the penultimate adventure but this may just be my favourite from the book so far! I thought it did a brilliant job of blending the modern era with the Classic in having the Ninth Doctor travelling solo and being extremely fresh off the Time War. He was clearly still reeling from everything that he had endured and caused there. He was far from enjoying victory. We know that this incarnation of the Doctor is typically grumpy and serious, and that was presented well here but I also got the sense that he was immediately trying to make up for his actions in the Time War. He wanted to feel some sort of atonement and start to put things right. I think he just wanted to be the Doctor again which was pretty powerful stuff. The actual disappointment he endured when he realised that his own future self had actually gotten to Moveomax Holiday Cards before him and stopped the invasion was quite incredible. The Ninth Doctor was stumped and he just put it down to coincidence. It was bound to happen at some point given the Doctor’s proximity to danger and saving the universe. I liked the description that the Doctor who had done this was so clearly the Tenth with the description of the coloured shoes, the suit and the tall hair. With nothing further for the Ninth Doctor to do, he set about his business and decided he would save someone’s Christmas. That would make him feel better. Except, the Cult of the Breaking Sunset had already been ousted and a new faction in the form of the Order of the Knotted Fate had been installed, recycling the impressive black robes in the process. The cult-like fashion in which the Order proclaimed bow-ties were cool was magnificent and left little doubt as to who had removed the initial Cult! The Ninth Doctor didn’t seem too impressed by the Eleventh Doctor’s proclivity to bow-ties which was very amusing, so much so that he wanted words if he was the one that had already dealt with the situation at the Chibolg Mega-Stamps collection. The Ninth Doctor had a plan to steal the Mega-Stamp before it was actually stolen and caused all out war, but once again the Twelfth Doctor this time was one step ahead of the game. The Ninth Doctor not wanting specifics regarding his future incarnations was fun stuff as he didn’t need to know about the strong accent! I thought much more could have been done regarding the interference of the Thirteenth Doctor, as surely if the Ninth Doctor had strong thoughts about bow-ties then he’d have a lot to say about becoming a woman in the future! That was a missed opportunity but it didn’t hurt the story too much. It showed the scale and it was nice to think that the Doctor’s future incarnations were looking out for their past self at a very vulnerable time. Gallifrey was gone and whilst the Doctor had been running away from it all of his life, the fact that he didn’t have an end destination or somewhere to call home now rankled with him. The Doctor considering the laws of time he was breaking just by having written words from his future was intriguing, and it really blended eras well to have him thinking of the Celestial Intervention Agency and Chancellery Guard enforcing them. It was quite lovely for this incarnation of the Doctor to be thinking of home. I loved the revelation that the cards that his future incarnations had been leaving for the Ninth Doctor were actually Christmas cards! They wanted this incarnation to have a day off, to celebrate Christmas, and just relax. After the earlier comments regarding companions, albeit an unnecessarily drab and negative mention of Adric, this Doctor was given time to relax which I thought was nice. He’d obviously been through a lot! Overall though, this was a superb read. 

Rating: 9/10