Preview: Doctor Who, A Fairy Tale Life

Opening scene: children playing. One falls down and breaks her ankle; the other children run away as something big, black and full of tentaclescomes to take her away.Cutaway to the Tardis, where the Doctor and Amy are deciding on their next destination. They decide to head to a famous vacation world with a fairytale kingdom filled with knights, wizards, dragons and that lot. Only when they get there, no one seems to know this is a vacation experience, and everyone is ignoring the crying children sitting in a doorway off to the side. Upon questioning, they reveal that their sister has been taken off to the Dread Tower by the serpentines, who come along and take away anyone who is sick or hurt.

If that sounds a lot like a mishmash of three episodes from this past season of Doctor Who to you, I can assure you, you are not alone. A lot of the elements here had a familiar feel, from the plot points to the technical explanations (“Amy, look at this! It’s a psychic-field inducer disguised as a magic wand! How clever is that?”) to the catchphrases (“Lances are cool.”) On the one hand, this is to be expected, because these are the same characters, so they would say the same kinds of things. On the other hand, Sturges has not quite gotten comfortable in the characters yet, so it almost feels like each element is ticking a box on the Doctor Who elements checklist.

That said, the story is still interesting. I have only read the first of four comics in the story which were oringinally released back in June of this year, so I do not yet know how the story turns out, and it may turn out to be entirely different from the TV episodes it is drawing from in interesting ways. The story moves along quickly enough that I think Sturges will get better as he settles into the universe of Doctor Who, and I am interested in reading the rest of the story when it comes out in an omnibus paperback on November 15th to see how the story turns out.

Brian Shearer and Kelly Yates are the artists for this book, and they do a good job of setting the mood. The setting is very picturesque due to the origin of the place as a holiday planet, but it looks a little less elaborate than it probably did in it’s heyday. The place is still beautiful, but not as crowded or richly furnished as you might expect. The emotion on the faces of the various characters is recognizable, but not overdone, as I sometimes find in comics, especially new series.

Overall, this is a strong start to a series. Anytime you start a new series based on a popular show, there is a period of settling in as the author and artist find a balance between keeping the essentials of the characters while still telling their own stories. This book is strong in pacing and characterization, which bodes well for the series as a whole. I am looking forward to reading the whole story!