Season 17 has been eliminated.

Pick the season you want to be eliminated next.

Have you heard about the new companion? YAS FROM HEARTSTOPPER AAAAEEE

(this is probably spoilers sorry)

Season 26 has been eliminated.

Pick the season you want to be eliminated next.

Season 22 has been eliminated.

Pick the season you want to be eliminated next.

As it's non-official artwork depicting the TARDIS, it's technically fanart, but this is my first birthday as a contributor to the Tardis Data Core (name & age were on the front of the blue box, so it's redacted).

Season 25 has been eliminated

Pick the season you want to be eliminated next.

Since this is a collection of short stories, I'll start off with shot summaries and then have my thoughts at the end of each section with my final thoughts at the bottom. And of course, there will be spoilers :)

Chasing the Dawn - Jenny T. Colgan

This story takes place inside the TARDIS and centres around The Doctor telling Yaz a story about how she once met Amelia Earhart to help Yaz relax. In the story, the Eleventh Doctor stumbles across Amelia's plane as she is embarking on her famous flight in which she went missing. The plane runs into some trouble when an alien parasite that travelled from a crack in time takes over her co-pilot, Fred Noonan, and causes the plane to crash on a very small island. The Doctor tried to convince Amelia to fly back with him in the TARDIS but she worries that the parasite will spread to the rest of the world if she doesn't find somewhere safe for it. The Doctor is forced to let Amelia go as she disappears into the crack in time from which the parasites came.

Well. This was interesting.

I know it's a bit shallow to be uncomfortable with the mention of menstrual cycles, but uhhhh... To read about it a Doctor Who book was certainly a new experience (one that I hope never to relive) though I will admit that it was nice to see the relationship between 13 and Yaz. I did find the story itself to be intriguing which is something I always look forward to when reading a story by Jenny T. Colgan. I thought her portrayal of the Eleventh Doctor was very convincing and realistic, and I appreciated her portrayal of Amelia Earhart's feminist views. This was the type of story where I felt a bit strange when I put it down, needing to take a few moments to think over what I'd just witnessed. Once you get passed the period conversation, I'd give this story a 7/10 TARDISes

That's All Right, Mama - Paul Magrs

The Doctor has been tasked with finding a safe place to hide pieces of alien communication devices. In a hurry, he hands them off to a young man name Elvis Presley. Throughout time, the Doctor plans to retrieve the devices but always ends up leaving them with Elvis and his mother just a little while longer. Until Mrs. Presley dies. In his grief, Elvis discovers that the communications devices that he and his mother had been using throughout his life to talk to one another can still communicate with her even after her death by calling back to the day she died. Because of the influence his mother had on his life, an alternate timeline was created in which Elvis lived well into his 90's with much success in his career. Unfortunately, the Doctor cannot allow this timeline to continue and there would be no telling of the consequences. Before she travels back in time to take back the communications devices; Elvis, Ryan, Yaz and Graham attend one last concert by Elvis while he fades from reality.

This one made me feel some shit.

I never really kept up the career of Elvis Presley, but now with this story, I feel like I don't really need to. I loved how a few of the other Doctors got their time in this story, and I loved reading about Peter Capaldi's Doctor making an appearance and letting Mrs. Presley keep the communications devices just a while longer because he was a fan. I thought it was really sad when the Doctor finally had to fix up the timeline and it made me realise how hard the Doctor's job is sometimes. This part of the story made me remember how much responsibility the Doctor has needed to take on when all she ever wanted to do was travel.

7.5/10 TARDISes just because I found the Fam to be a bit unbearable :/

Einstein and the Doctor - Jo Cotteril

The Doctor, Ryan, Yaz and Graham go back in time with the intention of meeting Einstien. However, what they find instead is mass hysteria only in the city's children and hallucinations of giant spiders in everyone. The Fam splits up into two groups and the Doctor and Yaz find Einstein and his fiancée Mileva to see if they can help. The Doctor discovers that Einstein is suffering from paranoia and delusions just like everyone else, only his seem to be worse. The Doctor discovers that there is an alien parasite living within the city that feeds on imagination and psychic energy. Together, the team lure all of the parasites to the city hall and trap them in a box before the 4th Doctor and Sarah Jane arrive to perform Einstein's wedding.

ShementionedRoseShementionedRoseShementionedRose

I liked this story; it was a good portrayal of showing kindness in a difficult time, it had darker moments that kill your soul and it had enough sappy love between Einstein and his fiancée to make Amy and Rory seem like a teenager's crush. However, I did think that I'd read this story before when the main antagonist turned out to be a leech of sorts that feeds off of the psychic energy that comes with a certain emotion, namely in "Plague City" by Johnathan Morris.

I'll give this story 8/10 because I loved trying to figure out which Doctor was going to be in charge of marrying Einstein.

Who-Dini? - Steve Cole

The Doctor, Ryan, Yaz and Graham go back in time to Chicago to find the famous Harry Houdini and his troupe a few moments after Houdini and the Twelfth Doctor had a confrontation with a dangerous alien responsible for the murders of other Magicians in the area. The troupe band together with the fam to help protect a ring owned by Mr. Houdini that is actually a controlling device for one of the stagehands in his trope, Billy. The Doctor discovers that Billy is actually the dangerous, shape-shifting alien seeking revenge on his previous owners who forced him into slavery for the sake of their magic acts, Houdini included. The team manages to convince Billy not to kill Houdini and help him repair the ship in which he came to Earth in so he may leave again. As part of Houdini's act was to use Billy to make himself appear in two places at once, Billy switches places with Houdini and instead stays on Earth with Houdini's wife while the real Houdini flies away into space.

Well this was wild. I liked the little scene with the Twelfth Doctor and Houdini coming directly before the story because we actually get to see how an event like that would take place if it happened for real. Usually, the Doctor lands somewhere, and if we're lucky, we get to see what happens in between his trips (ie. The Husbands of River Song when 12 makes his and River's dinner reservations on Darillium). For once, there was a short story that gave us a whole cast of character that I didn't find incredibly boring. I thought it was interesting that we were seeing everything from the perspective of someone who was, strictly speaking, the least important to the story and I found the plot to be filling. There aren't that many revenge stories with happy endings in Doctor Who that were done well, so I see this as a good reason why we have extended media.

I'll give it 9/10 TARDISes because of the reference to Dodo :)

The Pythagoras Problem - Trevor Braxendale

The Doctor and The Fam travel back in time to Italy in 500 BC to return the sunglasses of Pythagoras and promptly run into trouble. A dangerous consciousness known as the Argomeld accidentally travels into this universe through a doorway made by Pythagoras' formula known as the 'Tetractys'. The Argomeld seeks to inhabit more sophisticated life-forms before it can travel back into its own dimension, and of course, settles on the Doctor. The Doctor manages to safely host the Argomeld for a short time before she sends it back into its own dimension. Once everything is settled, Pythagoras politely explains that the sunglasses the fam had come to return did not belong to him.

To coin a phrase from today's youth, this story was kinda mid. The whole 'sentient idea' thing was really giving me vibes of the Solitract from "It Takes You Away" which is probably my least favourite episode of Doctor Who besides "Love & Monsters". However, there was a "dead dog" scene and that always makes me sympathetic.

3/10 TARDISes :/ I expected more from you, Braxendale!

Mission of the KaaDok - Mike Tucker

Seeing as the sunglasses were not Pythagoras's, the Doctor takes the Fam back to America in the 1950's to return them to their real owner, Audrey Hepburn. They approach her while she is filming her hit film, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" just as an alien known as AaRee attempts to take a scan of the actresses brain. The Doctor jumps in front of the beam, mistaking it for a weapon and AaRee explains that he was only taking a scan to upload into a wax-bot of Audrey Hepburn before returning to his ship to add them to his species version of Madame Tussaud's wax museum. Audrey is appalled by the idea but manages to switch herself and the wax-bot to take a peek at an alien space ship with the Doctor and AaRee. Unbeknownst to the three, other wax-bots of famous actors and actresses got loose in the filming studio so the Fam is put in charge of rounding them up until the Doctor can get back, leaving Graham to put up with a wax-bot of his favourite actress who talks like the Doctor. She discovers that AaRee is actually considered a child amongst his people and promptly scolds his employer for the exploitation of children and ruins his plans for cheap labour before returning Ms. Hepburn to her proper place.

This was absolutely hilarious. I loved the wax-bot talking and acting like the Doctor, poor Graham having to babysit! I thought the "Space Madame Tussaud's" was brilliant because the film industry takes up our planet's time and money so it makes sense (in a Doctor Who kind of way) that other planets would have noticed and become fans themselves. However, what was probably the main problem of the story, child labour, didn't really feel that important despite it being quite a big issue. I think the Doctor handled it brilliantly, thought, I just think if the story had more time to expand on the KaaDok, then maybe I would have cared a bit more, but it seemed a bit lacking in terms of a major problem.

Giving this 7/10 TARDISes because Audrey let the Doctor keep her sunglasses.

Hope you enjoyed. As promised, next month will hopefully feature a review of 'Alien Bodies' by Lawrence Miles on the 25th. (If not, I'll see about the 30th :))

Season 20 has been eliminated.

Pick the season you want to be eliminated next.

Season 24 has been eliminated.

Pick the season you want to be eliminated next.

Season 23 has been eliminated.

Pick the season you want to be eliminated next.