The Fall of Apalapucia

"We are content."

Writer: E.L. Norry

Format: Short Story

Released: October 2024

Printed in: The Adventures Before 07

Synopsis

Discover what happened before...

What did Osgood do the morning of The Day of the Doctor?

What happened to Tegan before Arc of Infinity, and why does it involve strange sentient lights in the Australian outback?

What was the Tenth Doctor doing in a hall of mirrors, right before Planet of the Dead?

Answers to all these questions lie in an incredible collection of new Doctor Who short stories that give a glimpse into the moments just before we saw the Doctor step on screen.

From Skaro to Apalapucia, from a shop front drained of colour to Rassilon's tomb, join a host of incredible adventures across the universe with Doctors, companions, friends and foes.

Verdict

The Fall of Apalapucia was unfortunately not the greatest of stories to continue my way through The Adventures Before collection of prequels. I think on paper this was arguably the story that made most sense in delivering a prequel as there is clearly a lot of historic world building that has taken place in The Girl Who Waited on Apalapucia. However, in reality I think the lack of familiar characters really hurt this story which is something that hasn't happened in any of the previous six stories in the book. We have either had the Doctor, a companion or a central character to the story that the adventure is a prequel to, but here there was none of that other than the setting. I don't think the story was particularly bad and I certainly could have been harsher and gone less in my rating, but I think this was just a bit boring. That's really sad to say as I do like and appreciate what the story was trying to do, but I don't think it really delved deep enough into the concept behind the two streams facility. The concept of that is excellent and the potential really is endless when it comes to two places being in the same space but experiencing time differently. I just thought it was a bit naff that it seemed the origin was for some artwork to be observed? That wasn't exactly exciting stuff! I thought the story could have featured a little more action and I think it would have been so much better to have a future incarnation of the Doctor experiencing some rather tragic events but be unable to get involved. That would have worked for either the Twelfth or Thirteenth Doctors and just would have been more interesting for me. Hell, even the Fifteenth Doctor could have featured! Seladore was a decent enough story but with no real background or knowledge of him, he just wasn't the right kind of character to carry an entire story. Especially not one that was one of the longer ones in the collection! I thought we might have got to explore a little more of Apalapucia and had more focus on the likes of the Handbots or what we saw on television. The focus on the Sublimation Process was okay and probably would have worked even better if the Doctor or a companion featured, but unfortunately it just felt meaningless. With only one episode going back to, I don't think Apalapucia was solid enough or anything close to the status required to carry the story. That's harsh I know but I think this just could have been better. It was very political and that just wasn't the vibe I was anticipating given what we saw on screen. It felt like a historic world with vibrancy to explore but that didn't quite come out on the page. The retirement and one last try was clear in what it would result in and I think that's one thing that is somewhat dangerous ground in prequels. You can't make what leads to what we see on screen too obvious. We already know where things are heading. I think the mistake of Seladore was a fine explanation of what happened, but I think ti came slightly too late and served as the finish whereas I would have liked to see what occurred immediately in the aftermath. It's a shame, and perhaps on another day I would have enjoyed this adventure more, but it just didn't have too much going for it. It was rather bland! 

Rating: 5/10