The 1995 Yearbook

Marvel Comics The Beast Inside The 1995 Yearbook

Published

1994

The Doctor and Romana fight a park.

• The Park of Evil by Noe Geric

The Park of Evil by Noe Geric 16/1/21

Writing something interesting in a short story isn't easy, and making no effort to do a proper conclusion seems to be the choice of every Doctor Who short story in the 1995 Yearbook. The Doctor and Romana actually fight a park. A whole park (who's an alien disguised) of evil. And there's also the traditionnal 'The companion gets written out for half of the story' that the Yearbook and Annuals are the master of.

The story really feels like a Season 18 episode, with all the technical and scientific stuff, and the Doctor being dark. But it's flat. The characterization of the only guest character is weak, the alien isn't particularly interesting, and nothing really happens except a long walk in the park. The creature isn't incredibly powerful, as the Doctor beats it quite easily. And that's the main problem: the conclusion. In one scene, the Doctor is ready to fight the creature, and at the next, everything is sorted out and explained very quickly. It feels incredibly rushed! And did the Doctor really know what he would need to fight the alien so he had it at the right moment in his pockets? It looks like a Deus Ex Machina, when the device that could save the day appears out of nowhere without having being mentioned before!

Some illustrations take half the page, and they aren't incredible. It just shows the Doctor, apparently drawn from stock footages and put in front of a background that represent the story (quite well I must admitt). But it looks like the Doctor doesn't have anything to do with the story itself! And the stuff could've been a little smaller and let some place for the text (and particularly the conclusion) to be detailed and breathe. I'm not against the illustrations at all, but they're too big and take more place than they need!

I'm really not impressed by the short stories presented in the annuals. I wasn't expecting anything, but I'm disappointed. Four pages aren't enough for that sort of story. Daniel Blythe should've been less ambitious this time! Incredibly dull: 4/10.