The Doctor and the Three Witches

"The Doctor's body was frozen, trapped in the story of her future self."

Writer: Janelle McCurdy

Format: Short Story

Released: August 2026

Printed in: Time Lord Fairy Tales 16

Featuring: Fugitive Doctor, Martha

Synopsis

We are all stories in the end...

Sixteen tales of ancient wonder and mystery, passed down through generations of Time Lords. 

Dark, beautiful and twisted, these stories are filled with nightmarish terrors and heroic triumphs from across all of time and space.

Verdict

The Doctor and the Three Witches was an excellent story to continue the ongoing Circuit Breaker multimedia adventure! This was a really strong short story and whilst it is a bit funky to include an instalment on the end of a new paperback edition of a collection that was released quite a few years ago now, speaking for my own preferences and personal experience I am quite lucky as I have not actually delved into this collection before! I'm lucky there that I'm not buying the whole book again just for one short story, but it might have been worth it! I've started at the end here with Time Lord Fairy Tales but I felt I had to stay on track with events for the Fugitive Doctor. It followed the style of a fairytale really well and just having an adventure start with 'once upon a time' is always good fun. This did feel like a story about a story which works well when you're playing with witches. The continuity from Don't Blink! was perfect and it felt like an immediate follow on of the overall story arc. That's obviously what you want in this kind of storytelling. The transition across different forms of media has been pretty seamless so far and that's pretty darn impressive. I thought the story was terrific fun and having Martha transport herself into the Carrionite orb was an unexpected delight! Whilst she was prominent in the previous instalment after being called in by Osgood, here she really was playing the role of companion again and it was brilliant to read. The pairing of her and the Fugitive Doctor was magnificent and the foreknowledge Martha has of who the Doctor will become and her experience with the Carrionites from The Shakespeare Code was used brilliantly. Toying around with the power of word is great potential but there was a lot more at play here. This was a world of story and fairytale and incorporating that into the plot for this collection was superb. The pace was frantic and I really enjoyed the blend of real life fairytales and Lilith showing the Doctor adventures of the future to come. The Fugitive Doctor really is being tested throughout this overall story by the image and reputation of her future self and I do think that's a little unfair. Is she not good enough just as she is? Martha playing her part there when the Doctor worked out a plan to escape the orb was to end the fairytale and an option there meant following the finale of Hansen and Gretel and burning the witches in an oven! The simplicity and just logical instinct of the Doctor thinking that way when she was on her way to the kitchen was incredible! It was a brilliant representation of a very different incarnation indeed. I think we need more of that. I thought the introduction of the Conductor was really good stuff and I love that we got what seems like some really strong story arc development. We now have a name for the cloaked figure we have seen popping up so far and whilst I still suspect it to be Andrew, I'm very excited to learn more. The Doctor bringing the water Wizard of Oz style to melt the Carrionites painted quite the picture, but they were not defeated in their own orb. In fact, they had carried out their mission and obtained strands of the Doctor's hair for the Conductor. DNA confirmed indeed. But for what use? I can't wait to find out! Overall, an excellent short story! 

Rating: 9/10