I quite enjoyed the collection Short Trips: The Centenarian. Not every story landed for me but the linking thread of following one man linearly through his life as he meets the first eight Doctors was a great hook.
8 Likes
This thread has inspired me to go back and revisit my BBC Books Short Trip collections!
First, @sircarolyn’s mention of Old Flames sent me back to reread that delightful story. It was brilliant seeing Iris’ introduction to the Whoniverse, and Paul Magrs’ prose always shines.
I also picked up More Short Trips and read a few of my favourites from that collection! Femme Fatale is another excellent Iris story that plays fast and loose with narrative structure, and makes reference to classic 60s shows like The Avengers and The Prisoner. Very fun!
I also read Scientific Advisor, which features the Second Doctor on a film set where a director is trying to recreate the events of The Invasion. This one is an absolute favourite of mine. Too often I think Doctor Who attempts to recreate the past, but Scientific Advisor deals with nostalgia perfectly– it takes a classic 60s adventure and looks at it from a completely different perspective, which allows the writer to both make light of it and to mine it for emotional depth. It genuinely made me cry!
12 Likes
This thread kind of died the moment it was born but I’ve decided I want to read some Doctor Who short stories so if you come across this post, please put down your absolute favourite short story (or stories) so I can read it. Could be Short Trips or just a standalone thing.
Happy short story-ing.
5 Likes
Six
- The Ruins of Heaven (with Peri)
- Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing (solo)
- Dr Cadabra (with Mel)
- Curtain Call (solo)
- Interstitial Insecurity (solo)
Five
- Graham Dilley Saves the World (with Erimem and Peri)
- Tip of the Tongue (with Nyssa)
Four
- Child’s Play (with Romana II)
- The Very Last Picture Show (with Leela)
One
- The Mother Road (with Ian, Barbara, and Susan)
- Waiting for Jeremy (with Steven)
6 Likes
I want to read more short stories and I’m making you all unwilling bystanders.
I have picked out ten new stories, each from different authors, to begin with, taken both from recommendations above and general hearsay and I will be posting the reviews for them here because why not, it’s free real estate.
And I decided to begin with:
Short Trips: The Muses #01 - “Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing” by Robert Shearman
Although its not the worst Shearman story, Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing ended up disappointing me, though I think it’s because I failed to connect to it on a personal level - 7/10
7 Likes
Indian Summer and The Five O’Clock Shadow are both fantastic
4 Likes
I liked the low-stakes nature of the story, but the one thing I found iffy is how the Doctor divulges his real name to a literal stranger, but supposedly none of his closest companions (at the time) know of it. I didn’t see why this lady needed to know his true name; he uses aliases all the time.
4 Likes
Just thought I’d remind people that Doctor Who Magazine 100 had The Legacy of Gallifrey, which contains a history of Gallifrey, and it becomes clear that the author really likes cats…
3 Likes
I find that this specifically is a great, underrated story that really shows what a good “Short Trip” can look like. Just a moment in time, a small moment that we don’t get to see in the larger stories that can really put what travelling with the Doctor means in perspective.
4 Likes
Decalog 3 #08 - “Continuity Errors” by Steven Moffat
Whilst I do like the playful nature of Moffat’s prose and being able to see where a number of his early ideas originated, I think the story really struggles to justify the Doctor’s actions, causing the whole, central moral quandary to crumble for me - 6/10
4 Likes
Interesting take! I thought the point of the story was that in a way the Doctor’s actions are unjustifiable. (Although I suppose he does save an entire planet’s population from
being massacred…)
5 Likes
It would definitely be an interesting idea if it explored it past just showing us the Doctor’s actions or didn’t conflict with nearly every other piece of Doctor Who media, including all of Moffat’s later work.
I think Moffat definitely meant something here but it didn’t come across. Like, is he saying the Doctor being essentially amoral is better for the greater good? Because that’s a very slippery slope.
3 Likes
I think he’s asking us to interrogate our own feelings and assumptions about the Doctor. Even without considering rewriting history (which is consistent with the VNAs at least), he is forever making choices that fundamentally alter people’s lives across the universe. Andrea’s life is definitely better after the Doctor changes her entire history, but does he have the right to do that? It sure doesn’t feel like it.
You mention in your review that because we’re seeing the story from the perspective of the person whose life is being rewritten that the story becomes terrifying. I think that’s the entire point. Having your whole life and self changed on a whim by an unknowable (and possibly eldritch) being is uniquely scary and feels entirely amoral.
That’s why Professor Candy asks the big question (Doctor who?) at the beginning. Moffat is asking us that question. I don’t think he’s making any moral judgements himself, but asking us to make our own conclusions about the Doctor’s morality.
5 Likes
I think there’s definitely something to be said about exploring the darker aspects of the Doctor but the story doesn’t really do anything with it. It doesn’t really land on a stance either way and just becomes an ambiguous event, an example rather than an exploration.
And if the point of the story is for us to decide on the point then I call bullshit. What’s the point of the story if it’s positing a pre-existing question without any actual incite, that’s a massive cop out. You call that introspective, I call it lazy writing, you can’t have the reader decide a writer’s moral stance on something.
Also, where does the psychic brain washing thing come in because that’s pretty firmly a bad thing in my opinion.
I can definitely see what Moffat was going for but I don’t think he delivered particularly well.
2 Likes
Personally I think ‘the Doctor is morally gray’ is a more interesting conclusion than the Doctor’s actions being definitively good or bad. But hey! 
4 Likes
Oh trust me, I really like the Doctor being morally grey. Seven is one of my favourite doctors because of it. But this isn’t doing really anything with the concept, just presenting us with a scenario and making the reader to the leg work.
Questions about the Doctor’s morality have been done a lot better. There was a whole sixty book long series all about it. Moffat himself would do it a lot better later on. This just feels like it thinks it’s smarter than it is.
4 Likes
Short Trips #02 - “Old Flames” by Paul Magrs
I think I get Paul Magrs now. Stupidly fun, tightly written and impressively well paced, Old Flames is pretty much everything I want out of a short story with a few kinks bringing it down. Absolutely interested in reading more of Magrs’ stuff now - 8/10
7 Likes
Short Trips: Defining Patterns #12 - “Lepidoptery For Beginners” by John Dorney
And that’s how you do a short story! John Dorney predictably excels here, with fantastic characters, ideas and prose. A great little high concept read that excellently captures the Second Doctor and manages to tell a brilliantly concise story in a really short amount of time. Truly outstanding - 10/10
6 Likes
I don’t often do this for stories outside of my chronological marathon but I wrote a review of the weird 1965 annual story - The Sons of the Crab:
4 Likes
Thanks to @Jae and the wonderful world of archive.org, I went down a wormhole just now because he brought it to my attention that I haven’t 100%-ed my beloved Allison. But good news, reading the short stories from Doctor Who Poster Magazine #7 has got me further to that goal!
Wasn’t expecting much, and there wasn’t much there because it’s basically just a recap of the episode, but I didn’t have a terrible time and I wrote some short reviews because a. why not? and b. who else is going to?
7 Likes