The Parliament of Rats

"Time Lords and time sensitives do not mix well."

Writer: Daniel O'Mahony

Format: Short Story

Released: March 1998

Printed in: Short Trips 11

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Nyssa

Synopsis

From Neolithic Earth to the furthest reaches of the universe in the far future, Short Trips brings together established Doctor Who authors and first-time writers in a collection of stories exploring the ever-changing worlds of the Doctor and his friends.

Witness the last days of the siege of Masada with the First Doctor and meet the Fourth Doctor's extraordinary 'old flame'. An evil enemy makes life difficult for the Seventh and Third Doctors, and while the Fifth Doctor is under attack on a sinister ship shrouded in fog, the Second may soon be guilty of a grave error of judgement... The Sixth Doctor's hopes of a holiday are dashed when he discovers a pleasure planet is hiding a shocking secret, and the Eighth Doctor is caught up in a deadly drama played out during the construction of Stonehenge.

And, of course, that's just the beginning...

Verdict

The Parliament of Rats was sadly not the greatest of stories to continue my reading of the first Short Trips book. It seems that the prose are taking the same line as the audios from Big Finish as I continue to increase the prose content from the range, it’s clear that it’s becoming more and more a situation that these stories are usually either great or when they’re bad they’re pretty bad indeed. I just couldn’t get into this story from the off and you know it’s disappointing when an adventure that is just twenty-seven pages long feels like it’s taking an eternity. The actual story was probably not bad in concept but the delivery was pretty bad. It felt a little rushed which is certainly understandable for the Short Trips range, but this is one of the longer tales in this collection and there have been far better with much shorter page counts. My main particular gripe was the characterisation of the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa. Neither felt like they were written well. The Doctor seemed absent towards Nyssa and there was no apparent reason why. Sure, he was a little distracted by the presence of Constantine as the time sensitive, but I don’t think that warranted him not caring and somehow caring too much at the same time. His response to Nyssa at the end about when they would be leaving even after the situation was resolved was too sharp and sudden. It was when he wanted to, but then when the circumstances didn’t really seem to change at the end it suddenly wasn’t his problem as Nyssa initially indicated anyway. It was all a bit strange and didn’t add up for these two characters in particular. Nyssa being sharp and sudden was weird too as she’s usually so innocent and calm. I liked how it was acknowledged that she had gone through so much since joining the Doctor and even losing Traken, but for her to be in place where she didn’t care didn’t sit right with me for her character. And even their relationship together was absent for the most part. If it was Tegan I could maybe see that but this more so had early Sixth Doctor and Peri vibes or the Seventh Doctor and Ace when the former was at his most devious and mysterious. The mystery behind the legend of the Parliament of Rats wasn’t all that intriguing and it was obvious that it would make an appearance after being missing for a century. It would have worked better if the story was longer so the presence of the Doctor and Nyssa could have been established before the ship inevitably arrived. Nyssa being taken aboard was decent but I think the story should have just focused on Constantine and the Doctor. Their relationship as Time Lord and time sensitive could have been so much more. I did like the presence of the staff and the way in particular it referred to the Doctor as my lord was the best thing about the story. I can’t imagine the Doctor would have enjoyed that aristocratic address but he didn’t even react to it. He just quite simply made the staff destroy itself and that was that as far as the story was concerned. Some of the other characters like Korzen and Brunner had potential, but then they were overshadowed the silly White God. Overall, not my most favourite of stories!

Rating: 4/10