To Sleep, Perchance to Scream

"They are coming back!"

Writer: Al Davison
Format: Comic Strip
Released: July 2010
Printed in: Doctor Who Annual 2010 (Comic)

Featuring: Tenth Doctor

Synopsis

The Doctor is dreaming. It's not quite a nightmare, but he's not having a good time. Feeling guilty of his past mistakes with companions, the Time Lord's dreams try to compensate for his mishaps with the aid of a certain blue box...

Verdict

To Sleep, Perchance to Scream was a very good conclusion to the comic version of the 2010 Doctor Who Annual and also to my reading of the third volume of the Tenth Doctor Archives from IDW! I now look very forward to moving onto the Eleventh Doctor Archives but this was a nice little way to say goodbye to the Tenth Doctor from IDW. I thought the lack of speech was really intriguing and I did think that it was going to be extremely similar to Onomatopoeia but thankfully it was not to be. I liked that story but I don't think it should be overly done as the comic strip format really does need speech! Of course, for much of the Doctor's dream there was not anybody to talk to but that soon changed when we saw a young Sarah Jane alongside the Tenth Doctor. That was a wonderful image but it didn't stay that way as she transformed into Adric and then Turlough as perhaps people the Doctor felt guilt for his actions towards them. The images of Susan and Astrid Peth were also terrific and I was a little surprised that the Doctor felt guilt for leaving her at the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. He surely knew from  An Earthly Child that she was fine and had a child but he still felt some sort of guilt. I really liked the scene with the Doctor brushing his teeth before bed and seeing the faces of his first three incarnations in the mirror! Was that a regular occurrence for the Doctor when he did decide he needed sleep? I'd like to think so. The dream landscape was good and the Doctor was struggling through it, all leading up to seeing his impending future self in the form of the Eleventh Doctor. He reassured his past self that everything was going to be okay. I found that this comic strip was actually very good without doing a great deal as it left the reader with a lot of room to think for themselves about what was going on. When the Doctor did awake from his slumber, the involvement of the TARDIS was an unexpected delight. I loved the idea of it siphoning some of the Doctor's bad dreams off and it always reacted in a troublesome way when it did so. But, it was doing what it could to aid its pilot! I love the relationship between the Doctor and the TARDIS and this was another terrific example of it being evident. Overall, a lovely little story!

Rating: 8/10