I completely missed the fact that the Doctor was talking to himself at the end of the book. It wasn't until I was reading a summary at the Doctor Who Reference site (http://www.drwhoguide.com/whobbk45.htm) that I noticed. I had to go back and re-read that part.

Is McIntee trying to say that Sarah is dead, or that the Doctor didn't have the nerve to go back and apologize to her?

Sarah couldn't have died in this book because she is clearly alive and well in the following year, 1998. I refer to the the end of System Shock, where Harry Sullivan has lunch with her. This scene is shown again, and expanded on, at the start of the sequel, Millenium Shock. At one point, Harry walks Sarah back to her car. The following is said:

HARRY: There's more than enough problems to keep MI5 in business into the next millenium.

SARAH: 1999 in a few weeks. Can you believe it.

Also Sarah wrote her article about the Millenium Bug in the January 1999 issue of Popular Technology.

So I think it's safe to assume that Sarah survived the events of Bullet Time. However,from what I have read, no explanation is clearly given as to what really happened.

Indeed. I can almost buy that she was wearing a bulletproof jacket, but there's no way that the shooter, who's been portrayed as a hardened killer and secret agent type, would be fooled by that. He's seen enough killing to know what to expect to see when he shoots someone.

If memory serves me correct, she's alive in the early 21st century. Doesn't Sam give her eulogy in "Interference"?

On refelection, I think the end piece was the 7th Doctor asking his memory of Sarah for forgiveness (for putting her in a spot), because either Sarah wouldn't talk to him, or he didn't have the courage to face her.

Top of p.246 there a mention of no blood after the shooting which lends credence to the bullet-proof jacket theory (since Sarah's noted as having one in her luggage). Tom's memory could easily be caused by hypnotism or the same thing the Tzun were doing to the UNIT soldiers.

I believe McIntee wanted to kill off Sarah but was forced to muddy the ending. Anyway, the rule of the books is that a former companion may only be shot dead after they have received a dose of the clap.

If you read "Sometime Never" you'll get a sort of explanation of what happened to Sarah Jane in this novel. It's a sort of Schroedinger's Cat situation.

For god's sake - I don't approve of this Schroedinger's Cat nonsense when it applies to cats, OR Companions, OR Doctors (see Zagreus). Sarah is alive and kicking in Interference and Millennium Shock, ergo, she's alive at the end of Bullet Time and any pathetic attempts by David A McIntee to imply otherwise must be ignored. He's obviously just desperate for attention - he also wanted to kill Barbara off in Face of the Enemy.

Well, I happen to agree with you (except maybe about the cat part--it's a metaphor, not a political statement!) about Sarah Jane's (and Harry's and all the other threatened former companions) fate. I'm just passing on the info to Graham.

I'm still trying to figure out a way to re-interpret "Loving the Alien" so that I can explain away the giant-Ace-from-another-dimension.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound as if I was attacking YOU. Perish the thought. (Though I AM a great believer in shooting the messenger.) I just happen to disapprove of even metaphorical cats being harmed.

I'm still trying to figure out a way to re-interpret "Loving the Alien" so that I can explain away the giant-Ace-from-another-dimension.

I'm voting for 'sick-minded delusion', at least until someone retcons it properly.

Sarah is alive and kicking in Interference and Millennium Shock, ergo, she's alive at the end of Bullet Time and any pathetic attempts by David A McIntee to imply otherwise must be ignored.

Well, we now have WAY more convincing evidence than mere EDAs/PDAs.

(God, there was never a chance in hell the new series would do ANYTHING other than trample all over the books and audios, was there? If only I'd realised that during TSLABYOD I might not have bothered with most of 'em...well, if only I'd realised Who WAS coming back...)

I completely missed the fact that the Doctor was talking to himself at the end of the book.

You're not the only one. 'Sarah takes a bullet ten pages from the end. It's not fatal' - obviously the DWM review didn't realise the Doctor was actually talking to a pigeon.

Though it is spot-on with 'This feels like an Oriental thriller featuring a character called the Doctor (no relation)'. And that using the Seventh Doctor as a devious manipulator is a 'worn gimmick'.

'Part of the inspiration for Bullet Time was that I didn't really like the whole Virgin "Dark Doctor" thing. So I wrote a book using him, essentially saying, "You do realise he's the villain, don't you...?"' - McIntee in DWM.

Er...no I DIDN'T realise this, actually. I could swallow the Doctor wiping out the Time Lords without batting an eyelid, I can certainly swallow him messing around with Chinese Triads. And, sorry, but I don't quite get the logic of hating the Dark Doctor so much that...er...you attempt to introduce him to the PDAs...?

Every time some scientist opens their gob 'The history of weak civilisations contacting more advanced civilisations is not a happy one' I just can't help thinking that even a really RUBBISH Who story has been through all this before...

It's a bit late to think about it. We have been advertising our existence with our TV and radar transmissions for decades now.

Don't they eventually become REALLY weak and dissipate? (I'm sure I read something about us NOT being able to nip off into space and record our lost Hartnells and Troughtons after all, dammit. Plus, the Brig DID mention satellites as drawing attention to ourselves and inviting invasion, not the Beeb.) Whereas those radio telescope things are OBVIOUSLY asking for trouble, haven't these people SEEN Logopolis?! (Not to mention SJA: The Last Sontaran.)

It's always possible to recover the information content of those signals, but the size of the radio telescope needed to do it soon becomes impractically large. However, the signals themselves remain detectable at large distances. They have characteristics that clearly mark them as artificial and will reveal our presence to anyone looking in our direction. Searching for signals of this kind is actually is one strategy being pursued by our own SETI programs.

Well, if television DOES result in the destruction of the human race then, to quote Russell T God, 'what a way to go'.

Killed by 'Hollyoaks', 'Torchwood' and 'Pets Win Prizes'. Yay.

Torchwood is part of our glorious Whoniverse, Pets Win Prizes presumably introduces the glorious concept of CATS to the universe, and as for Hollyoaks...OK, I admit, I know nothing of such a thing.

Young people worship it, apparently.

Oh yeah, that kid... Kelsey? in the SJA pilot?

THANK you! I had a feeling I'd heard the name SOMEWHERE! Thank the gods this comes from the Whoniverse and not from actually speaking to someone who watched it or anything...

'Tom inclined his head, planing towards the parachutes. He opened his arms as he swooped upon them, an ungainly hawk snatching silken rabbits to its breast' - oh-kay...how realistic IS it for a human to fall faster than parachutes and manage to catch 'em mid-air? (Look, I realise THE DOCTOR can manage a controlled fall to the extent that s/he can get the key into Sexy's lock mid-air but that's...the Doctor.) And if Tom's such a superhero, why let himself be pushed out of the plane in the first place?

'For a moment, she seemed to think he was taking the world's most inopportune moment to touch her up' - ah, those crazy feminatzis, even when you're saving their lives mid-air they're falsely accusing you of sexual assault...

'There are so many things to do, and so few hours per day on this planet' - Gallifrey has more hours per day than Earth?

'She was also still angry that her picture had been published with her last story. Not only had it led to that unpleasantness in Thailand, but it would prevent her from posing as anyone else for an investigation, at least in the near future' - 'That unpleasantness in Thailand' is a weirdly euphemistic way of referring to attempted-murder-via-being-chucked-out-of-a-plane. And she didn't seem angry at the time. And why the hell WOULD the papers publish a picture of an UNDERCOVER reporter? And has Sarah never heard of DISGUISE? She made a smashing Sister of Karn...

'It never hurt to be pleasant' - since when was THAT Sarah's philosophy?!

'Her half-hearted suspicions about the company president were dispelled as soon as he entered the room. There was no sign of a beaky nose or Edwardian taste in clothing...He wore a tweed suit and a blood-red waistcoat. The effect was vaguely Edwardian, if casual' - FFS. leaving aside Sarah's bizarre delusion that the Doc has to dress Edwardian...he IS dressing Edwardian!

'There was something about the little Scotsman that seemed both familiar and worryingly alien, yet she couldn't put her finger on it' - HE'S THE DOCTOR YOU CRETIN.

'You know what these girls are like' - THESE GIRLS, Doctor?

'"What about scientific advisers?" "Wildthyme is on vacation, and you know how the Americans are about loaning people out." "Couldn't we borrow MI6's Time Lord?" "I gathered he's on assignment on the Russian/Afghan border"' - I don't recall Iris working for UNIT at the turn of the century, despite Big Finish providing us with a cornucopia of new TARDIS teams. And if MI6 had a Time Lord, presumably he'd swanned off by the time of Spyfall?

Sarah has never heard of UNIT-SEA (South-East Asia)? Alright, neither have I, but I don't have a get-out-of-jail-free-when-you-kidnap-a-kid special relationship with UNIT...

'As far as she knew, UNIT-SEA's headquarters were in Singapore' - oh, so Sarah DOES suddenly know all about UNIT-SEA?!

'"Then we'll give her a traditional scare; teach her a lesson." "That's fine," Pendragon agreed, his features shifting in a way that usually meant he was already thinking about something else and hopefully losing track of the conversation that was ending' - the Doctor arranged for Sarah to be raped cos he couldn't be bothered to follow the conversation he was having?

'Her voice as a reporter is her only weapon against us; if we ensure that no one will ever listen to that voice, she can't harm us' - nice, now the Doctor's destroying Sarah's career/vocation. (Also: five seasons of SJA definitely prove her voice as a reporter is the LEAST important weapon in Sarah's arsenal.)

'"That was an impressive rescue in Thailand," Sarah said when she'd got her breath back. "I was sure I was dead."' - They didn't have this discussion at the time?

'The sun is blue, the sky is blood-red' - is that...a likely combination for a planet to have?

'Joined the headquarters staff in 1978, for four years assisting the special scientific adviser' - oh, PLEASE don't start UNIT-dating Sarah...

To be continued...

'The sun is blue, the sky is blood-red' - is that...a likely combination for a planet to have?

Well, on Mars, the sun looks blue when rising or setting, and the sky is generally salmon pink, so I guess a blue sun and blood red sky isn't that far fetched, imho.

Well, on Mars, the sun looks blue when rising or setting

Oh for heaven's sake! WHY?

It is caused by the size of the dust and ice particles that will best remain suspended in the thin martian atmosphere. Their size range disperses orange and red light best, while letting through the blue, which gives the martian sky its salmon pink color and tints the sun blue.

It's outrageous no one mentions this in Red Dawn or Resurrection of Mars or Fear Itself or GodEngine...at least as far as I remember, not gonna relisten/reread NOW...Though come to think of it there'd probably been some terraforming going on in the latter two that would affect that sort of thing...

'He had never lied to anyone under his command, because inaccurate information - no matter what the reason - got people killed. He wasn't about to start now. "Tranh's dead," he said. "He was trying to run"' - um, so much for not-lying, Tranh never tried to run...

'She knew that when he regenerated it meant the death of the person he had been; a sense of loss was only natural' - when did she EVER show any loss about poor Pertwee! (To be fair, she totally did over Tennant in End of Time and Death of the Doctor but that's not the POINT.)

'UNIT officers might be cut a certain slack, but there were still some taboos common to any country military' - I'm not so sure, the Brig was delightfully approving of two of his men being gay in Stranded: UNIT Dating...

'They laid down concentrated fire when he appeared, churning up the stone garden as the Doctor bolted across it, bullets nipping at his heels' - *sigh* Seven is HOPELESS at dodging bullets (see: the telemoive), he's not JODIE! and her miraculously-dodging-a-hundred-laser-bolts-a-day Fam...

So, um...did Sarah have a peck-on-the-cheek or passionate sex? Why do the two parties in question have completely different memories? But apparently the same memories (the latter) when discussing it later?

'Sarah was delighted. If both UNIT and the DEA were working together, she need have no fears about whether either of them were the good guys or not' - yeah, to hell with asking 'em about THE DEATHS or anything, it's not like you're an investigative journalist...oh, wait...

'He reminded her slightly of her father' - quite a trick given dear old dad died when Sarah was MONTHS OLD (The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith). To be fair, this beats 'Why didn't I go in for shovelling horse manure like my dear papa wanted' (Paradise of Death)...

'Now, the Triads never admit non-Chinese into their ranks, so either you've had an oriental-looking incarnation or your association isn't a real Triad' - so, um, Sarah spots this but the ACTUAL CHINESE don't...?!

'"What happened?" "Humans happened," the Doctor said, with not a little scorn. "If I've learnt one thing in all my lives, it's that you can always rely on humans to take something good and beneficial and pervert it into something selfish for their own aggrandisement. Sometimes I wonder why I like them so much"' - oh •••• off you pathetic wannabe-human loser...(Usually I LOVE it when the Doc's slagging off my species. I myself have been known to do so on a regular basis. But s/he usually does it with such affection not this hypocritical self-righteousness.)

'Your species has a capacity for hatred, back-stabbing and thoughtless selfishness that's among the greatest in the universe' - you do it again four paragraphs later? To SARAH, the woman whose career YOU just destroyed with lies, AFTER ordering her raped?

'"To leave?" Sarah was relieved but couldn't see why they had bothered to come in the first place if they just wanted to leave. "If you didn't want to do anything with Earth, then why did you come here?"' - um, which bit of them informing her two pages earlier that 'We are refugees, if you like. We came to Earth to recover the technology and any remaining personnel from an earlier expedition of several years ago' have you ALREADY FORGOTTEN?

'Sarah felt terrible. She had betrayed the Doctor's trust in her judgement just as much as he had crossed her' - she HAD? When? Why? How? What?

'Somehow, either through woman's intuition - not that she believed in such a gender-specific thing' - trust me, feminists can believe in a LOT of gender-specific things...

The Cortez Project should be highly relevant to numerous Who stories, funny we've never heard of it before or since.