The Voton Terror

"The whole spectrum of intelligent life in the universe was present in this one room."

Writer: Unknown

Format: Short Story

Released: September 1980

Printed in: Doctor Who Annual 1981

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Romana II, K9

Synopsis

The Doctor takes Romana and K9 to a very important event in history, the Intergalactic Federation Conference that would have a huge impact on the future of submicroscopic species, but taking the place of the Gallifreyan delegation isn't all that's straightforward.

Verdict

The Voton Terror was a somewhat average story to continue my way through the 1981 Doctor Who Annual! I think the story itself is actually pretty decent but the way it was presented unfortunately had an adverse effect on my enjoyment. The way it was formatted and the illustrations that accompanied it actually hampered it for the worse in my opinion which is a big shame. For a writer of a Doctor Who story to not know the correct spelling of the word swapped was a big issue for me that had me questioning things almost immediately, and in terms of presentation it didn't get much better. The usual issues of the illustrations were present but thankfully not for the whole story! If the likeness of Lalla Ward as Romana was not permitted to be used in this Doctor Who Annual, then she either shouldn't be featured in the artwork or not seeing her so clearly face on. The woman depicted here just looks nothing like the companion we saw on screen and one thing that has also irked me throughout the Annual is the lack of consistency in her illustration. I understand that it's out of the artist and writer's control to not have the license to draw Lalla Ward, but at least give us a consistent Romana throughout each adventure! But she looks so different throughout which is just baffling. Even that would help. I also thought the actual layout of the story was strange with the text clunky and interfering with the illustrations or leaving large gaps. It just wasn't an easy reading experience which is a shame as the content was fine. I liked the idea of the Doctor and Romana taking the place of the Gallifreyan delegation at the Intergalactic Federation Conference and the former knowing that the true Time Lord party were called back because of an emergency was good stuff. I thought he might have orchestrated the emergency but that was actually something put into play by the Voton spy. The way he took the place of the Numese mud creature worked well, but the illustration of this creature was horrific. The actual artwork itself was fine and it did look impressive, but it just wasn't anywhere close to the description provided in the story. It was stated to be seven foot tall but was smaller than the Doctor, and it was also detailed how it had a row of eyes and the image of the creature was dominated by a large singular eye! It was very bad. The suckers and tentacles didn't match either, it was disappointing. I thought the Doctor's method of talking down on the submicroscopic species to anger up the crowd and oust the Voton with his disguise fluctuating didn't make much sense at all and that was even acknowledged as unorthodox within the adventure! It was a bit strange. Thankfully, the actual imagery of the numerous species at the conference was presented very well and the Fourth Doctor was characterised very nicely. I enjoyed the humour at the end with the Doctor realising he'd missed the actual speech he came to see, but the TARDIS democracy voted against trying again with Romana and K9 set on adventures elsewhere. Overall, a decent story unfortunately impacted by the formatting and presentation. 

Rating: 6/10