Health & Safety

"Tyrannosaurus Rex - fearsome predator, but a brain the size of an egg."

Writer: Christopher Cooper

Format: Comic Strip

Released: August 2009

Printed in: Doctor Who Annual 2010

Featuring: Tenth Doctor

Synopsis 

A faulty Magnetron Drive on a crashed spaceship causes the TARDIS and another vessel to crash-land on Earth in the time of the dinosaurs. The Tenth Doctor must team up with the alien survivors to get past dinosaurs and an officious security hologram to disable the drive.

Verdict 

Health & Safety was not the best comic strip story in the world by any stretch of imagination. I'm not sure why I put myself through the torment of the revival comic strip stories that appear in Doctor Who Annuals. I criticise them nearly every time I blog about them due to their short length, poor artwork and lettering and childish audience. I don't understand why they can't give us a proper comic strip story that appears in Doctor Who Magazine, like they used to in the Classic era Annuals. I'm lucky enough to own the 1980 Annual and that was just superb! Terror on Xaboi was a fantastic comic strip story and the detailed text stories that accompanied it made the Annual a wonderful read. It obviously holds a huge nostalgic value in my collection given that it was released 16 years before I was born, but it set the blueprint for me on what newer Annuals should be like. With the DWM team pretty much taking over Doctor Who Adventures, I really do hope that they're also given the responsibility of producing the 2016 Annual which will be released in the coming months now. Less of the stupid youth audience, make it like DWM! Fit for all. 2010 did not succeed with that sadly. The Vortex Code filled me with hope that this would actually be a consistently good comic strip Annual but it just wasn't to be. A Cretaceous period setting with a title such as this just doesn't seem to equate. The dinosaurs that featured barely looked threatening despite their actions and seeing as these Annuals are only released once a year (it's in the name!), surely some better artwork could go into the comic strips! This should be a yearly treat but it's not turning out to be like that at all. The characterisation of the Tenth Doctor was decent in the story though and I actually did like how he got along with Flish and Amyt. Their situation was similar to the Doctor's in that a gravitational strain was bringing ships to the ground. I just don't understand why there was no reference to their ship being around in what is considered behind ancient History! These Annuals can be so frustrating on times because there are good ideas there but they just don't have the platform to be done effectively with just six pages and poor artwork and lettering. The text really is just plucked from Microsoft Word which doesn't give it a good feeling at all. It's a bit lazy really and just makes the whole story look quite tacky. The point in continuity in which this story takes place I now like to think of shining with Gabby in the Doctor Who Comic. The Tenth Doctor has had some fantastic adventures with her already after meeting her in Revolutions of Terror. They then had a terrific tale in The Arts in Space and The Weeping Angels of Mons looks set to be absolutely incredible! That's how you fill the gap where there's no televised stories with the loning Doctor. Not the rubbish on display here. Well, that's a bit harsh as the story did have highlights in that the Doctor was on an automated call centre during the time dinosaurs roamed the Earth. It's something quite ironic! The crashed ship looked quite impressive but the dinosaurs just did not. The Emitter Drone was quite humorous with the Doctor in the obvious highlight but the resolution and lack of clearing things up could have been better. Overall, not the best but it had its moments to secure an extremely generous rating. 

Rating: 6/10