Petrified

"They're not statues at all, they're petrified people!"

Writer: Gerry Haylock

Format: Comic Strip

Released: September 1974

Printed in: TV Comic Annual 1975

Featuring: Third Doctor

Synopsis

The Doctor is sent on a crucial mission to Zenos by the Time Lords to derail the brutal regime of Parada, a deadly monster and the leader of the Groobs. He has petrified the local population into a statuesque position and there seems no way of undoing it...

Verdict

Petrified was a pretty decent little comic strip but it certainly could have been improved. As is often the case with stories from annuals, particularly comic strip ones, I appreciate the difficulty attached to a five-page comic story but this definitely could have been improved upon. I thought the idea of the Third Doctor being sent on a mission by the Time Lords against his will was good and I did like his reaction to how quickly he was being diverted. The Doctor admiring the sculpting abilities of the Zenos population was quite funny as it turned out that they weren't statues at all but were actually people. Parada had frozen an entire people just by making them petrified and I thought that was quite an achievement. It was impressive but he just seemed to be lacking something despite his obvious capabilities. The Groobs were vastly intelligent and the Doctor recognised that almost immediately. However, even when they knew of the Time Lords, something that again showed their knowledge, the ease with which the Doctor managed to trick their leader into unfreezing the Zenosian people was a little too much. I thought it was a good plan by the Doctor but it just happened far too quickly and surprisingly, in a story of this length, it seemed to last longer than it should have! The proportions seemed a little off as I was also quite surprised by how much setting of the story there was on the opening two pages. I'm not entirely convinced it was all necessary but it wasn't bad, it just took space which was a bit of a shame. Some of the thoughts of the Doctor seemed too narrative for the story but I did feel that his characterisation was pretty good with Jon Pertwee's incarnation's likeness being nicely captured. I thought the ending was very iffy and ambiguous and whilst I do often like ambiguity, I wasn't actually too sure of what had been resolved here. Jet-lag may have played a part in that but when I think about, I just think the ending was a little bit of a letdown. Overall, still a decent story but it was certainly not without its flaws.

Rating: 6/10