Dance Till You Drop

"Let's just pretend all this makes sense."

Writers: Jason Quinn, John Freeman & Mike Collins

Format: Comic Strip

Released: February 2025

Printed in: DWM 414

Featuring: Fifteenth Doctor

Synopsis

The Doctor joins forces with the Hypnotising Cat to defeat Beanie in a dance off with the world at stake.

Verdict

Dance Till You Drop was not the best of comic strips to continue the adventures of the Fifteenth Doctor in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine. I feel harsh with my rating as it wasn't until after the fact that I realised the ideas of the Hypnotising Cat and Beatie were from children who had won a competition, but I'm sticking with it because I felt like the story was just a bit of a mess. I am quite excited by the prospect of a few one-part adventures for the comic strip in the run up to the new series airing on television but there's not a lot of room to really dive in which I think was a big problem here. I was so impressed with Run in the last issue as that did so much with just six pages, whereas this one was just a jumbled mess. Considering there were three writers for this adventure it didn't look like an awful lot of thought had gone into the plot! Right from the off things feel a little ridiculous with a Hypnotising Cat taking the reigns as the central character for the story and whilst I'm jumping ahead a little bit, the ambiguity moment at the end shared between the feline and the Doctor was just awkward. Was the Doctor really required to be on hand to save the day? It didn't really seem like it. I thought the concept behind Beatie in coming from the Dimension of Dance was pretty average and whilst the artwork and colour for its appearance was impressive, I wasn't fussed on the design at all. I mean sure it certainly jumped off the page and was eye catching but it just looked like a bad mashup of a Minion and Sponge Bob Square Pants. There's a character from my childhood I didn't think I'd be writing about in a 2025 blog entry but here we are! I thought the actual plot was just ludicrous and so rushed with the proposition that all of the world leaders had been danced into the tomb. All of them? Really? Even those from the likes of Iran, North Korea and Russia? And what tomb? It must be some assembly of personalities there with the likes of Putin, Trump and Starmer coming up against the other leaders of the world. Now that's something that would be fun to read! But alas, it didn't have too much credibility in my eyes. I just can't imagine those kind of figures being lured and defeated by dance, no matter what kind of dimension this Beatie was from. The name is a nice touch though and certainly something I can appreciate. I think it's fair to say that this is a comic strip made for the Fifteenth Doctor. I could maybe see the Eleventh or Thirteenth Doctors taking on the task of a dance off to the death, but this latest incarnation is certainly the one I would be most confident with. I enjoyed the imagery that came from his dancing and whilst I think some of the characterisation is a tad forced in the comic strip with the use of 'babes', this Doctor letting his hair down and enjoying himself with a dance is nice to see. It also plays nicely into his first full adventure on screen in The Church on Ruby Road where he was also travelling solo. I think the involvement of the Hypnotising Cat at the end kind of hurts things further than the already ridiculous nature of the comic strip, because it just takes away from the Doctor. The attempt to disorientate the reader at the end by suggesting that the story's events might not actually be real or have even taken place is just a bit naff to be honest. I don't think it really adds to the mystery of the story and just highlights how ludicrous things were. The quote I chose was not by accident! It really was a bit of a jumbled mess. Shame to say, but this goes down as my least favourite Fifteenth Doctor story of any format. 

Rating: 4/10