Time Lapse

"Do you remember the year 2004?"

Writer: Naomi Alderman
Format: Short Story
Released: March 2019
Printed in: Thirteen Doctors, 13 Stories: 13

Featuring: Thirteenth Doctor, Yaz, Ryan, Graham

Synopsis

Nobody can remember the year 2004. Suddenly one day in 2019 all records of fifteen years previous are wiped out, except everyone knows that 2004 happened. It must have. When the Doctor gets a letter through the TARDIS asking for help, she too can't remember 2004. Where can it have gone?

Verdict

Time Lapse was an excellent new story to continue this range of Puffin short stories that seemed to have begun quite some time with the original Eleven Doctors, 11 Stories collection. Now, I have read the first twelve stories within this particular collection before after getting the postcard edition some years back for Christmas, but after some transit trouble I was delighted to finally pick the latest volume up from the library to read the new story. This is one of the very few things from the era of the Thirteenth Doctor that I have yet to blog so I am glad to get it off my list! I thought the concept of the adventure was fantastic and having a whole year just disappear from history and everyone's memories is quite something! I loved the added twist of everyone knowing that it has to have happened – that seemed unique in memory/history altering tales and I was intrigued that the memory loss wasn't just contained to Earth given that the Doctor and her companions had no recollection of the year within the TARDIS. 2004 was missing and it was widespread knowledge. I just thought it was so much fun to play around and even though much of the story didn't actually focus on the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions, it seems quite a while now with the freezing of the DWM comic strips that I have covered anything with the current incarnation. Maria Hackett managing to send a message to the TARDIS serial number and therefore the Doctor was great and I liked finding out later that she obtained this from an emergency handbook taken from Richard Somerset who was a Time Agent. The 2019 British Museum setting along with National Air and Space Museum in Washington during 2004 made for two brilliant locations and I'm a huge fan of museums given my love of history and they're always on my to-do list when visiting another country. I'm a sucker for knowledge. Richard being there initially to look at the artefacts obtained after the Iraq War was good and I liked the levels of realism in this adventure as even the triggering of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty was included. Brexit in Doctor Who - the horrors! The love story of sorts, albeit an unrequited one, was a little heartwarming and even though Richard didn't seem the most pleasant of men, it was quite sad to read how quickly Maria rejected him. I mean, her comments about not dressing smart and half-understanding things were pretty derogatory, but it was still a quick no thank you. The way he took umbrage to that was quite spectacular and went so far as wanting to erase the whole year from her memory to give himself another chance with her in 2019! It was quite the barmy reason for a whole year to go missing from history, but the action seemed to fit the nature of his character which I was a fan of. Everything just fitted well. The way the story shifted between the different years and settings was good and the scale just worked which was great to read. Despite that, the way everything was contained to just a few characters was excellent and leant itself to a more intimate feel which was definitely the right way to go for a short story of this nature. The end was quite simple and Ryan's reaction to finding out why Richard had erased a year was fantastic. I thought the whole Time Agent aspect of the adventure was very good and given her traditional distain for the Time Agency and their practices, the irony of the Doctor being their emergency contact was wonderful. I also adored the line from Richard when explaining how an action that you thought took ten minutes but suddenly half an hour had passed was the action of a Time Agent doing his job right. Brilliant stuff. The Doctor dealing with the Corpse Gipes was also decent, and their inclusion as a whole provided some good action although I'm not sure how their appearance would have gone down as a three-headed vulture creature! Overall though, a really great story!

Rating: 9/10