The Whispering Gallery (comic story)

The Whispering Gallery is a one-shot comic book by IDW Publishing published in North America in February 2009.

Promotional summary
(From IDW comic book advertisement)

The TARDIS has landed in a maze-like gallery filled with thousands of talking pictures, and the Doctor and his companion Martha discover they've come across a planet where showing emotion has been outlawed. The inhabitants have good reason for their supression, but it wouldn't be like the Doctor to leave them in fear of truly living.

Summary
When Martha complains that they're out of milk, the Doctor aims the TARDIS for a grocery shop, but instead it lands at the Whispering Gallery on the planet Grått. The gallery is filled with pictures of the deceased, and each picture contains a small fragment of the dead person's consciousness, specifically their final thoughts before death.

The Doctor recalls having once met a young female Gråttite named Grayla, and having briefly travelled with her, giving her a taste of the universe beyond her home planet, where any display of emotion is outlawed. The Doctor is saddened to find Grayla's picture among the displays, with her final thought being a warning to the Doctor about displaying emotion on Grått. The Doctor leaves the gallery in search of Grayla's grave, leaving Martha alone in the gallery.

The Doctor soon learns the monsterous secret behind the Gråttites' lack of emotion, and of the consequences of having taken Grayla on her single jouney in the TARDIS. Martha, meanwhile, finds herself compelled to rearrange the gallery to fulfill the last wishes of some of its exhibits.

Characters

 * The Doctor
 * Martha Jones
 * Empathivore
 * Grayla (flashback)
 * Brief companion of the Doctor between DW: The Runaway Bride and DW: Smith and Jones.

Continuity

 * Martha Jones is the Doctor's companion, meaning this story takes place after she was invited to join the TARDIS in DW: The Lazarus Experiment and prior to the events of DW: Utopia. It definitely occurs before the previous IDW story, The Forgotten, which takes place after DW: Journey's End.
 * The story also reveals that the Tenth Doctor briefly travelled with a female from Grått named Grayla, although she was not asked to become his companion. Given the time placement of the story within the Martha Jones era means the Doctor must have met Grayla during the period between DW: The Runaway Bride and DW: Smith and Jones during which he was companionless. Although technically a companion, having travelled with the Doctor however briefly in the TARDIS, it is stated that Grayla is never actually invited to join the Doctor (if he met her after the events of The Runaway Bride, this may be due to him still recovering from the loss of Rose Tyler in DW: Doomsday and Donna Noble's later refusal to join him. (Although his hesitency to have a companion is also echoed in Voyage of the Damned, The Next Doctor and Planet of The Dead which take place later in the Doctor's timeline.)
 * At the beginning of the story, Martha appears to be looking into the TARDIS' refrigerator, one of the few occasions since the revival began that a creature comfort of this sort has been seen. The fact she refers to the refrigerator and not the food machine (featured in the early First Doctor serials) implies the machine might no longer be in use.
 * When the Doctor leaves to find Grayla's grave, he carries a multi-coloured umbrella similar to the one carried by the Sixth Doctor.
 * The concept of the Whispering Gallery is similar to that of the "data ghosting" seen in DW: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead.

Timeline

 * The Whispering Gallery occurs after: DW: The Lazarus Experiment
 * The Whispering Gallery occurs before: DW: Utopia