Monitor

"I believed you to be a man of principle."

Writer: Huw Wilkins

Format: Short Story

Released: December 2003

Printed in: Short Trips: Steel Skies 04

Featuring: Seventh Doctor

Synopsis

There are many places that most of us can never see: places that are sheltered, locked away, cordoned off from the outside world. But to the Doctor, and those who travel with him in his TARDIS, there is no such thing as a locked door. Anywhere in space and time is open to them to visit – even if sometimes it might be better to leave such places well alone.

Steel Skies is a collection of stories based in enclosed and artificial environments: places constructed to keep the dangers of the universe outside, perhaps, or to keep their inhabitants locked in. It is divided into four sections, each exploring a different kind of confinement:

Section One, Flight, comprises four tales of travellers who left their homes for far-away destinations – to explore, to start a new life, or to fight for the survival of their species.

Section Two, Frontiers, explores the corridors, living quarters and ventilation shafts of four futuristic environments – designed to shelter men, women and children from harsh natural forces, or from the threat of nuclear war.

Section Three, Incarceration, tells four stories of punishment and imprisonment, from San Francisco's infamous Alcatraz, to the cage of a flightless angel in the dilapidated ruins of Heaven. 

Section Four, Isolation, deals with the loneliness and despair of being cut off from the world outside, by physical or mental incapacity, by the ravages of war, or caught between destinations aboard the TARDIS itself. 

A recurring theme in all four sections is the effect of the Doctor's arrival in these enclosed environments – sometimes positive, sometimes less so.

Verdict

Monitor was a pretty average story to continue my way through the Steel Skies edition of Short Trips! I have finished the Flight section of the book now and whilst I'm still enjoying this more than the running theme of Zodiac which I didn't get on with much at all, I think this is slowly dropping in quality which is a shame. Hopefully a new section for the next four stories in the form of frontiers will see an increase in standards! The ever reliable TARDISWiki tells me that this story features the Seventh Doctor and it's actually a good job that I knew that prior to reading as I don't think there's anything within the adventure that suggests which incarnation is present. That's a shame as I think it helps to have an accurate picture of which Doctor is around. That was a problem for me in Reversal of Fortune last time out as I could easily have considered that it was the Third Doctor, but here it was a pretty bland and nondescript characterisation of the Doctor in general. I don't think going down the generic route is ever the right way to go and I think that's part of the trouble a little with The Infinity Doctors. Stories work better when we have an accurate image of the Doctor in my opinion and I don't feel like I got that here which was a shame. The story itself is just fine but it could do with a little more clarity in parts. We get thrust right into an adventure where much of the action has already occurred with the Doctor awaking from an almighty crash. I was quite surprised by how violent certain aspects of the story were as we had the Doctor actually feeling the agony of broken bones in his chest. Might he be nearing the events of The Movie at this point with this incarnation wearing a little thin and ready for regeneration? It's a fun thought in head canon. I am a little ashamed to say that when I first saw the word Dragons named in the story I thought this was going to be a supernatural kind of tale. It took far too long for me to realise that the Doctor was thrust into the war between humanity and the Draconians! That was a fun eureka moment for me on the train home from work as I realised exactly what was meant by dragons and it being a derogatory term for the Draconians. I enjoyed the setting very much and it definitely had strong vibes of Frontier in Space which I think is important when revisiting a similar setting and war. The callousness of Captain Carey was almost impressive in how much distain he had towards the Draconians and it really did feel like he would never listen to the Doctor in wanting to stop the conflict. He was the authority figure that had seen eleven people lose their lives and the Doctor wasn't going to let him forget about that. But the figure of forty-seven thousands casualties at the hands of Shain-Kotek is almost incomprehensible. That's an incredible number of lives in one hit! No wonder the rest of the crew were on board with the Doctor in wanting to come to terms on peace because they knew they were losing the war. The Monitor and Covenant ships were good aspects of the story and I liked how they were vastly different which you would hope for when you're dealing with two sides of a war. I thought the Doctor using twelve billion as the assumed future human population of Earth as a bargaining chip when it came to getting Carey to finally halt and communicate was good, but I do feel like things were left a little unfinished which is a shame. This is a setting though that can be come back to time and time again and that's good, but this one felt a little long and too much aftermath of events we didn't get to experience. Still, a decent read in parts but definitely room for improvement! 

Rating: 6/10