Customer Reviews

Mawdryn Undead (Doctor Who #82)

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I liked the story for this one, especially the premise about the luxury ship and its purpose. However, the introduction of Turlough is weak, he just appears, no back story, no fleshing him out. His relationship to the Black Guardian is also thrust upon the reader in an abrupt fashion, again with no reason or back story. That said, the story itself is entertaining. Lethbridge-Stewart has a large part in this one and Nyssa and Tegan serve as the Doctor's companions. An OK read, but not one of the better novelizations.

This is one of those rare times in the Target/TV stories where new twists have been added to refresh Who. It does keep it diffrent, and renews a freshness. For the first time, a companion is actually against the Doctor, and meddles in things that makes life harder for the Doctor. Also, a new villian (Mawdryn) has an unusual goal, he wants to die, but can't without the Doctor's help. The appearance from the Brig and time travel problems also help to round this out as a pretty good story with a lot of stuff going on. A good read, particularly if you are finding the Target novels a little stale.

The TARDIS emits an alarm regarding a warp ellipse cut out and Nyssa questions whether they could be on a collision course with a ship in a warp ellipse. With odds of several billions to one against, we all know that there is a ship on a collision course.

And so begins one of the more noteworthy Doctor Who stories of the show's twentieth season: a story that introduces a new companion (Turlough), brings back the Brigadier, relies on time travel and has several surprises in store.

And several problems, too. The original story was written to return one of the Doctor's first companions, Ian Chesterton, in a one-off reappearance, but when William Russell was unavailable they just slotted the Brigadier in instead without substantially rewriting the story. And so the story fits poorly with previously established Doctor Who chronology, and we have the unlikely situation of the Brigadier teaching maths at a boys' school.

So, the story's saving grace is that it is a good story. Had it been less well written, it would have fallen flat on its face.

This book is also the first part of a trilogy of stories, followed on from by 'Terminus' and 'Enlightenment'.