Honest Living

"I thought you told me this man was dead?"

Writer: Paul Leonard

Format: Short Story

Released: March 1999

Printed in: More Short Trips 10

Featuring: Third Doctor, Jo

Synopsis

Here on Earth or out in the depths of the cosmos, the Doctor and his companions are never far from adventure.

Discover things on Earth you were never meant to know. Get around the universe. Get short tripping.

Verdict

Honest Living was an excellent story to continue my reading of the More Short Trips collection! I really enjoyed this story right from the get go and whilst there was a little bit of jumping and skipping around in terms of chronology at the start, everything tied back very nicely at the end to round out what was a brilliant adventure! I liked the real life threat of Jo being kidnapped and with her kidnapper being someone like Tuala, it felt more scary and significant than if she was taken by a monster or alien. It’s always more relatable when there’s a human doing something bad and having a young woman like Jo in the predicament of being kidnapped is rather dangerous! I thought the reactions of the Doctor and the Brigadier to reach her were great and I loved the precautions they had taken in being able to locate her. They were really ahead of the game and I liked that a lot. I thought the focus on the death of Bernard Forbes was intriguing and the fact that it was altered was fascinating. I’ve mentioned it numerous blog entries before but I’m such a big fan of stories about time itself and paradoxes. This worked really well here as Krashen was on hand to earn money by the means of changing the past! That’s quite the job fair play. It did seem problematic in that the money had to be held in stasis because of the nature of paradoxes, but it was good fun! I mean, the presence of Krashen himself was unexpected and I loved that we got Day of the Daleks fallout. The Guerrillas in that story had so much potential so I love that we meet another pair here trying to escape the rule of the Daleks. I mean, who could blame them? It’s just that their presence in the twentieth century was hurting time itself and the use of time travel devices as a part of their income wasn’t going to suffice. It was a difficult conversation for the Doctor to have that by stopping Krashen it meant people would die, but he took solace in the fact that these were established events. They’d happened and that was that. Time has a funny of trying to fix itself and that was what was happening to Krashen. We’d seen Forbes in deteriorated form after being saved three weeks ago because his time was up. It really was all very Final Destination which was terrific. I appreciated that having recently completed that specific film franchise! I thought Jo dealt with being kidnapped pretty well and I think that says something about her confidence in the Doctor! She wasn’t hugely surprised to see him coming to save her. I thought the way things ended with time sorting itself out and destroying the house and taking Krashen with it was very good and almost seemed like a natural restoration of order. The Doctor didn't have to actually do a great deal which is somewhat unusual! The Doctor and Jo waking up back where they belonged was good and I enjoyed the dismay the former had regarding the lack of newspaper report covering the death of Forbes. His little trip at the end to the home of Annie was quite emotional as she just detailed how her husband had vanished. Even if he was supposed to be dead, that must be difficult to deal with and it did seem like the Doctor was there for her. Overall, a really strong read!  

Rating: 9/10