Alien Bodies Dead Romance Unnatural History Interference Book 1 Interference Book 2 Interference (two book set) The Taking of Planet 5 The Shadows of Avalon The Banquo Legacy The Ancestor Cell The Compassion Arc

BBC Books The Future War Arc A Story Arc

Published

1997-2000

Synopsis: The Doctor gets glimpses of a future war between the Time Lords and the mysterious Enemy. But Faction Paradox is along for the ride.

• Future Unwanted by Jamas Enright

Future Unwanted by Jamas Enright 17/10/01

The Eighth Doctor Adventures (EDAs) have been experiments in many ways, not the least of which is giving us an eighth Doctor based on an hour's performance. One arc of the EDAs has been the result, directly and indirectly, of Lawrence Miles.

In Alien Bodies, we were given a glimpse into the future of the Time Lords, and that future is war. They are fighting against an Enemy which isn't revealed, but one which by all appearances is as powerful as the Time Lords themselves.

My first response to this was 'Oh no.' Followed by 'Why?' I don't think we needed this. At first sight, there doesn't appear to be any reason for revealing this about the future, other than to say 'Wow, the Time Lords fighting a war! Isn't this exciting?!' No. No it isn't. Especially when the Enemy, and the details of the war, are kept so in the dark. What we have are: the Time Lords are in a war, can't say how it happened, can't say who it's with, can't say when it is. It's a war, it's exciting! It's unknown, so it's exciting and mysterious! For me, I'm on the side of 'it's irritating'.

One of the main reasons it was irritating was that I didn't think much was going to be done with it. One or two other authors might refer to it, but otherwise it'll never be mentioned again. When no details were forthcoming in Alien Bodies, I knew that if it was going to happen, it was going to be a long drawn-out affair.

The other big thing that was introduced in Alien Bodies was Faction Paradox. They irritated me too. Yes, finally some time travelling species was taking advantage of the ability to create paradoxes, but these were Gallifreyans. It's like the Time Lord equivalent of Goths, a bunch of wannabe Time Lords pretending to be something fashionable.

This continued in Unnatural History, in which the boy did the paradox thing merely because he could. Yeah, there's motivation for you. Oh, and somewhere along the way the Doctor became a Faction Paradox agent (I say 'somewhere' as it isn't clear when this starts affecting the Doctor), another step in making the Faction Paradox be a 'cool and happening thing'. I'm still not buying it.

My fears about the use of the future war weren't alleviated when the next book to deal with it was Interference, written by Lawrence Miles. Interference is, to put it lightly, and admittedly in entirely my own opinion, rubbish.

We are presented with many concepts: that the Enemy come from Earth, something I immediately found unbelievable. We not only have the Faction Paradox, but also the Cold and the Remote, all of which are interconnected in a way that's never made exactly clear. Fitz is reprogrammed by the Doctor's opponents, something which hadn't happened for at least three books. An old companion is brought back, well that's always popular. Sam undergoes some introspection, which of course has never been done (note: sarcasm), before leaving. And Compassion joins in such a subtle way that I didn't even realise she was a companion until Blue Angel (and I did go back to Interference to check, but it still isn't clear).

Then there's the Third Doctor side, in which we meet I M Foreman, and find out he's an old Gallifreyian priest who travels with his own regenerations, and the Doctor's been following in his footsteps the entire time. What? Did we need this? Was I M Foreman such an inexplicable figure that we had to have some wildly exotic and improbable explanation for his existence? What's wrong with just having some scrap yard merchant with an ironic name?

But all of that isn't as bad as the Doctor's forced regeneration. Why does he regenerate? Oh, a sheriff happens to shoot him after the menace is over, because, as far as I can tell, the Doctor needed to be regenerated for whatever plot arc reasons that have been invented. Gone is the noble death fighting off the Spiders, now it's just a casual happenstance at a mere whim. This ranks in believability up there with Iris Wildthyme having the adventures instead of the Doctor, a clever idea that I don't give credence to for a moment.

Now you know there's going to have to be a big things a-happenin' to explain all this. So, with some sense of anticipation and dread, we look to the next book dealing with the future war.

The Taking of Planet Five so wants to be a Lawrence Miles book it hurts. We have Time Lords force evolved to be weapons, and sentient TARDIS's. Big, big stuff, yes, but again it's all mysterious and hence, to me, annoying. This didn't make me any fonder of the arc.

In Shadows of Avalon, we get the next step with the war gearing up to happen in the not too distant future (I thought it was the far future?), with Mistress Romana leading the way. Is this the Romana we knew before? Not really. No sign here of her previous friendship with the Doctor, seen in the Virgin series as well as the TV show.

But the worst thing is Compassion, and her transformation into a TARDIS, which is the one part of Shadows of Avalon that Lawrence Miles had a hand in. Umm... eww. This was a person, and now is anyone worried about this change? Not really, it's seen as a good thing. Not only by Romana who wants to use her to breed TARDIS's, but also by the Doctor, who's looking for something to replace his TARDIS, and doesn't mind that what Compassion was has just effectively been killed off.

Speaking of his TARDIS, Shadows of Avalon destroys one of the most potent symbols in Doctor Who, the Police Box. This has been the one thing that is more constant than the Doctor himself, something that we know will always be there, and it gets nuked because the Compassion TARDIS is better. Now I really hate this arc.

Finally we get The Ancestor Cell, and now it's the war. And it's with Faction Paradox. Made me wonder if even the editors are paying attention any more. And it's a Faction Paradox that's turned to war, a road they were on in Interference. Now they're just a more vicious form of Shobogans. They're not even cool any more. (And I will give that Lawrence Miles had absolutely nothing to do with this, and wants nothing to do with it, but hey, he started it.)

And what is the big enemy? Primitive cells created after the big bang... ah, an enemy from the dawn of time. I'm just glad we get an answer, let alone that it's so amazingly lame.

Seen as a whole, I still ask, is this necessary? Did this really add anything? If there was a ball here, someone dropped it long ago.

On the completely other hand, the following Caught on Earth arc is much better. This works, and allows the Doctor to start afresh, ignoring the personality dumped on him by earlier EDA authors. This needed to happen after the previous books, and I can only hope we never go back to the future war again, although Father Time gets close. This arc gives the Doctor a new personality that is more human in some ways, but contains very dark, alien, aspects in it. No more 'no, no, no, no, no, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam,' here, which can only be a good thing. With this fresh beginning, and companions of Fitz and Anji, I'm actually looking forward to the upcoming books. Which was precisely what I wasn't doing before.