The Soul Garden Part 2

"I simply told you what you most wanted to hear."

Writer: Scott Gray
Format: Comic Strip
Released: 1st June 2017
Printed in: DWM 513

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Bill

Synopsis

Bill has entered the Dreamspace and meets famous poet Samuel Taylor Colleridge while the Doctor is left to deal with the Haluu and their attempts at acquiring a meat feast. Rudy Zoom isn't helping matters as it is revealed just what Oksanna is feeding...

Verdict

The Soul Garden continued in good fashion with this entertaining and pacy second part of the story! It's great to get more adventures with the Twelfth Doctor and Bill that don't appear on our television screens but I'll get to the comic strip shortly. As is the norm for the DWM stories, I like to talk about the magazine itself and this seems to be one packed issue! I was delighted to be reading Galaxy Forum and discover that my letter was printed. It keeps up my 100% record of getting letters printed and it's always a pleasure to see your name in the pages of a magazine you so dearly love! As always, I'm really looking forward to the previews of the upcoming episodes with Empress of Mars and World Enough and Time particularly grabbing my attention. I always find it difficult to pick when there is a choice of cover for an issue but this month I just could not resist going for the one donning the Mondasian Cyberman. It is my favourite design and The Tenth Planet is one of my very favourite stories so I simply could not resist. Steven Moffat's column this month was as entertaining as ever and I liked how he even answered a question from Frank Skinner. Seeing the news once again that David Tennant and Billie Piper will be reunited on audio has got me really excited for November's release of the second volume of Tenth Doctor Adventures and I'm also looking forward to reading the DWM Review of the latest episodes as they were very well done in the last issue. I'm greatly anticipating reading what Rona Munro has to say after writing her first Doctor Who script in nearly three decades and Toby Whitehouse's preview of this week's episode The Lie of the Land will be something I enjoy reading. The feature on the Ice Warrior Restoration looks very intriguing and the Martian monsters have always been favoured enemies of mine so I'm looking forward to reading that too. I am yet to read the latest Twelfth Doctor novels but I'm hoping to crack on with those very soon so their reviews will be an interesting read too. It will be good to see how Bill and Nardole fair in another format of story. Anyhow, back to the comic strip story now and I thought it was a really good continuation of Bill's first comic adventure. Following on from her getting knocked out in part one, she was now in the Dreamspace which is a concept that I adore. It didn't quite worked as I hoped in Last Christmas but I really liked what we got here. Especially once Rudy Zoom joined in on the dream festivities. He was as boastful and full of himself as I would expect which definitely did not disappoint me. The characterisation of Bill was good and rereading part one was a different experience for me given how familiar I am with her as companion now we've had four more episodes air. Pearl Mackie's essence was captured very nicely while the Doctor seemed to take a little bit of a backseat as he was trapped for most of this part's events. The Haluu getting named was useful and I really liked how we heard more from Oksanna. The concept of the dreams and what she wants to feed was good and that provided us with a good cliffhanger. The inclusion of Samuel Taylor Colleridge was great and I loved how colourful this story is. I almost forgot that it was set on Titan before the scene where the dome descended into the cove. I'm interested to see where things go from here and the fact that I have an interest in the story can only be a positive thing. I look forward to seeing where things go from here in the next issue!