From Doctor Who Magazine #117
A Review by Finn Clark 14/11/04
Gaaah! I've always thought this story was trivial nonsense. Rereading it, I was surprised by how enjoyable it is, if you're in a forgiving mood... but at the end of the day, it's "ho ho ho" nonsense on the level of an old TV Comic strip and basically one big TARDIS scene to boot. Come on, all together now... TARDIS scenes are boring!
In an impressive bit of synchronicity, Peri becomes Mel by putting the 6th Doctor on a salad diet to try to make him lose weight. Before anyone asks, it is coincidence. Salad Daze was published in DWM 117 (cover-dated October 1986) and Mel made her TV debut weeks later on 1st November. This issue's cover proudly proclaims "WE'RE BACK!" after the eighteen-month hiatus and sports a publicity shot of Colin and Nicola posing for the camera on Ravolox. From here onwards John Ridgway would draw Peri in her Mysterious Planet outfit, striped yellow jacket and all.
As happened with Peri in the previous strip, Time Bomb (DWM 114-116), Frobisher is mentioned but not seen. Instead the story is all about Peri accidentally activating the Doctor's Personal Reality Warp and getting sucked into the world of Alice in Wonderland. These scenes are actually quite enjoyable. Blatant dream-sequence nonsense, but it gives John Ridgway a chance to play around and have fun drawing Lewis Carroll's imagery. If nothing else, you get to see Colin Baker playing the White Rabbit and for no reason dragging behind him an artichoke with a sign saying "6th September 1986". Strangely this was also the UK transmission date of Trial of a Time Lord episode one. Wow, what are the odds?
Alice in Wonderland may be fun, but it's only half the story's eight-page length. All too soon we're back to the TARDIS scenes and Peri's overdramatic realisation that Salads Are Wrong and that they should be eating hamburgers and chips instead. You could improve this story a hundredfold by missing off its final page. Admittedly you'd need to rewrite a little dialogue on page seven, but anything would be better than that Scooby Doo ending and the Doctor's grin to camera. Dear oh dear.
Overall, this story is forgettable space-filler that's only redeemed by John Ridgway's art. Simon Furman has written better. It's not the worst one-parter DWM ever published, but it's certainly the most throwaway one they'd published up to that date. However if you're feeling charitable, it looks pretty and it's not without charm. Pointless, but in an amiable sort of way.