World Distributors The 1986 Annual

Published	1985
ISBN	7235 6747 6

Starring the sixth Doctor, Peri and the Master

• A Review by Finn Clark

A Review by Finn Clark 28/4/04

A slight improvement on last year, but that's not saying much. Unfortunately World Distributors didn't go out on a high.

I've seen the Davison annuals accused of being fannish, but the Colin Baker annuals actually were. These stories have more atmosphere and better imagery than last year's, but their use of the Time Lords will make you want to scream. Interface could have been a spooky haunted house story like Funhouse in DWM 102-103, but it's dragged down by a technobabble non-ending and a "what were they thinking?" scene where the Doctor gets a message from the Time Lords and learns that his TARDIS was diverted here by the President of the High Council. Kills the atmosphere as dead as go-go disco boots.

Then there's Beauty and the Beast. It's the mood piece that you'd assume from the title, with a fairy tale world of beautiful people, a castle and underground goblins... but when the story becomes in danger of having to develop a plot, the Doctor says: "The Time Lords have forbidden any direct interference in the development of any planet, and I must obey them."

WHAT?? Since when? That's simply a cheat. I quite like Beauty and the Beast, but for its imagery, not its narrative.

Frankly this collection's dull, but it has its moments. The Fellowship of Quan and The Radio Waves aren't bad, Retribution builds a little atmosphere and I quite liked the surreal imagery of Time Wake. In the sewers beneath 18th century London, two hundred years of British Prime Ministers stand waiting! We even see deaths in Retribution and Davarrk's Experiment, which is unusual for World Distributors. Incidental characters don't die in Doctor Who annuals, unless they're really the villain in disguise. However that doesn't change the fact that I'm looking for good points in a boring collection, rather than nitpicking a good one.

The art is rougher and scratchier than last year's. The likenesses are worse, with Nicola Bryant faring particularly poorly, but the pictures are more characterful. It's almost as if the artist was inspired by the excellent strips being drawn then for DWM by John Ridgway. The 1986 annual also has some strange ideas about filling out the page count: full-page photos of Colin Baker. No text, just the beauty of Colin. Erm. Okay, he's the lead character, but do they really think the man's a pin-up?

The behind the scenes article is a bit crap this year, being an interview with Dorka Nieradzik in the make-up department. It's a reasonable article, but it lacks the amazing photographs that we'd become accustomed to over the past few years. In fact the only photo is of Dorka herself. Uh, she looks like a nice lady.

Overall, not great. It has reasonable characterisation of the regulars, but unfortunately the stories are merely so-so. One might have hoped for a stronger finale to the Doctor Who annuals, but que sera sera. In any case it's hard to get too critical about a series which lasted for twenty years with only two weak stretches (under the two Bakers) and personally I think even the lesser World Distributors books deserve a higher profile than they've had in recent years. Who knows? In a few years we could be buying the 2006 Doctor Who annual...