The Pythagoras Problem

"All souls are immortal."

Writer: Trevor Baxendale
Format: Short Story
Released: December 2019
Printed in: Star Tales 05

Featuring: Thirteenth Doctor, Yaz, Ryan, Graham

Synopsis

"Even though they're gone from the world, they're never gone from me."

The Doctor is many things – curious, funny, brave, protective of her friends... and a shameless namedropper. While she and her companions battled aliens and travelled across the universe, the Doctor hinted at a host of previous, untold adventures with the great and the good: we discovered she got her sunglasses from Pythagoras (or was it Audrey Hepburn?); lent a mobile phone to Elvis; had an encounter with Amelia Earhart where she discovered that a pencil-thick spider web can stop a plane; had a 'wet weekend' with Harry Houdini, learning how to escape from chains underwater; and more.

In this collection of new stories, Star Tales takes you on a rip-roaring ride through history, from 500BC to the swinging 60s, going deeper into the Doctor's notorious name-dropping and revealing the truth behind these anecdotes.

Verdict

The Pythagoras Problem was another good continuation of the Star Tales collection of stories where the Doctor encounters famed figures from Earth's history. This one saw us going way back into the history books with a trip to around 500BC and a meeting with Pythagoras. I liked that we got a visit to Ancient History as I think it's a period that should be explored more in Doctor Who and this one was a decent example. The arrival of Pythagoras himself into the story was very unexpected with the team finding him in a slightly beaten and drunk-looking way. Before that, we had some terrific humour with Graham and what he was being forced to wear to fit into the period. The image I had in my head of his knobbly knees in his tunic whilst Yaz and Ryan looked resplendent certainly made me laugh on the train into work this morning. His being effected by the local change in the time-space continuum was interesting and I was immediately interested in what was going as things went awry as soon as the TARDIS was departed. There was no messing around and I guess there isn't much time for that in a short story like this. The pace was really good, a common theme of most of the book, and made for an exciting little tale. Myia was a great little character and it was nice to meet some of Pythagoras's family. I think it's always positive when dealing with a historical figure that we also meet some of their familial relationships and get to know them. It definitely helps when you have a TARDIS team as big as this one as well otherwise things could get quite crowded and clumsy. Thankfully that was not the case here. I found Pythagoras's belief in metempsychosis really interesting and the Doctor's thoughts on the subject, apparently knowing exactly what happens to a human when they die, were most intriguing. I really loved how Pythagoras believed the Doctor was living proof of his belief because of how she regenerated from body to body from time to time that they encountered one another. His belief of his old friend's soul being in a dog seemed a little weird and it was a little sad to see the Doctor try to tell him that his beliefs were wrong despite how much it obviously meant to him. The soul within then inhabiting Myia seemed a natural development, but when it was described what actually happened to the dog after the inhabitant parted was horrific. That couldn't be allowed to happen to Myia. The use of the tetractys was really good and it obviously fitted in perfectly with Pythagoras. The explanation was perfect and we even got a little diagram amongst the text which I'm sure would have been beneficial for a number of readers. I was pretty darn good at maths at school though so I knew what it was all about. It representing dimensions was something I didn't know a huge deal about, obviously, but the idea of zero dimensions really fascinated me. I'd like for that to be explored in future. Milo was another decent character as Myia's boyfriend and his fear that his beloved would befall the same fate as the dog was quiet expected! The Doctor had other ideas though and wanted to make the transference through the tectractys easier which would keep Myia safe from withering away. The use of the students Pythagoras taught was really good and things just came to a logical ending with pretty good timing. As a whole, this was another terrific little story and the presumed lead in for the next and final story in the collection with Audrey Hepburn and some borrowed sunglasses was fantastic. I'm a big fan of that continuity! Overall, another very good adventure.

Rating: 8/10