Vogue

"I was an exile who'd been invited back home."

Writer: Stephen Cole

Format: Short Story

Released: July 2024

Series: I, TARDIS: Memoirs of an Impossible Blue Box 05

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Turlough, Kamelion, Peri, Sixth Doctor, Mel, Seventh Doctor, Ace

Synopsis

The Doctor has a unique bond with their TARDIS. They've always loved the 'old girl' for the way she's gone looking for trouble anywhere in the universe. The Doctor says they stole the TARDIS from Gallifrey. The TARDIS disagrees... she stole them. She hasn't always taken them where they want to go, but she's made sure to take them where they needed to be.

For the TARDIS is dar more than just a time machine crossed with a spaceship. Her life reflects the Doctor's life – a shared wanderlust and longing to explore. Now you can revisit the Doctor's adventures as seen through the eyes – or the flashing rooftop light, at least – of the TARDIS. From the time the Doctor stole her from Gallifrey to her latest adventures with the Fifteenth Doctor, the TARDIS reflects wittily on her epic, incredible history – past, present and future! 

Verdict

Vogue was another pretty average short story to continue my way through the I, TARDIS: Memoirs of an Impossible Blue Box collection. There seems to be something of a common theme with this book now and that is that it's just trying to cover too much with not enough space. It almost feels like there should have been two books covering both the Classic era and the modern one because to take account of basically every televised story is almost impossible and this just leads to things feeling rushed and the Journey Log in particular is just becoming absolutely rubbish. A sentence or two is not enough to describe what happened at a certain location. There's a startling lack of detail here which is just frustrating because I know this book could be so much more. Bundling together the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors into one story was surprising to me given that the first four in the collection have all featured just one incarnation's time aboard the TARDIS, and whilst I knew from the number of chapters that this wouldn't always correlate I didn't expect three to get thrown together! That was disappointing as in the main body of text, the focus was surprisingly on the Sixth Doctor's time who had the least number of serials! Getting the TARDIS to react to the events of Castrovalva was good and I thought the shocked and exasperated perspective actually worked well here with her reacting to having a quarter of her mass jettisoned to escape Event One. However, from there things were just not very focused and again there seemed to be more intention to cover everything quickly whereas I think it would almost certainly be beneficial to go into more detail on certain highlights. The little page focusing on The Five Doctors was very good and I like the shedding skin line when the multiple TARDISes dematerialised at the end to take their respective Doctors and companions back to their own time stream. Suggesting that these might be the first Memory TARDISes seems like a bit of a stretch, but I can appreciate what's being done here. I thought the TARDIS could have gone into more detail about her relationship with Kamelion but at the same time I couldn't disagree with her description of him being such a waste. One thing I was really hoping for from this book in particular was the TARDIS reacting to the events of Attack of the Cybermen and the chameleon circuit functioning properly again. I was so disappointed with how vague that was presented here as I felt that was a massively missed opportunity. It was just descriptive of what happened instead of actually telling us how the TARDIS felt which was a shame. Touching upon the Rani hijacking the TARDIS in Time and the Rani and causing the Sixth Doctor's regeneration also warranted more detail, but I did like how Mel was utilised with the TARDIS even being confused as to how she became a companion. The suggestion of the Valeyard being from within the Time War was fascinating and something to ponder given which numbered incarnation fought there and that not really being confirmed on screen, but it's something to think about! I felt the Seventh Doctor's section of the Journey Log was very poor and didn't tell us anything at all, but the TARDIS hinting at Ace's fate and then her return in The Power of the Doctor was a nice touch. A better nickname than Basher would have been good though! Pease Pottage for Mel was just perfect. I also did enjoy the take on the new TARDIS console from the twentieth anniversary onwards. It does look splendid and the Eaglemoss figurine of it is one of my favourite elements of my collection. Overall, some fun stuff but it just felt like a rush.

Rating: 5/10