The Doctor Who Files. For kids. Tiny little hardback books costing SIX POUNDS each. And given that there are EIGHT of 'em (Doctor, Rose, Mickey, K9, Slitheen, Daleks, Cybermen, Sycorax), the average weak-willed parent will find themselves coughing up at least as much as they will for an ENTIRE Season Two/Twenty-Eight DVD box set. Insanity. Even if they weren't a bit rubbish, which needless to say they are. They just tell us stuff we ALREADY KNOW from actually WATCHING the series, thank you very much. If there was ANY excuse for these shameless cash-ins it would be to give ignorant kids a glimpse of the richness of Who's 43-year history, but no, they go to mind-boggling lengths to pretend that nothing happened pre-2005.

And god do they repeat themselves all the time, then they quiz us on everything they've repeatedly told us, then they tell it to us all over again in all the other Files. Whose bright idea was it to have a 'Allies' and 'Enemies' section in every book, thus ensuring that (one way or another) we're told all the Doctor in EVERY SINGLE BOOK?

SPOILERS FOR SEASON TWO - AND I MEAN THE WHOLE OF SEASON TWO, GO AWAY IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT:

The Daleks:

How can you have a file on the Daleks that DOESN'T MENTION DAVROS? How? How? HOW? I know they're trying to avoid the old series like the plague, but dear GOD...

The Daleks are 'Hated and feared throughout the whole universe' - except by people like PotW's 'the Daleks don't exist!' Rodney, presumably.

'After a thousand years of war they mutated' - is it just me or are they implying the mutation was natural and not in any way created by the deformed nutter in the wheelchair they're not mentioning?

So the Dalek-Time Lord Time War was a 'result' of the Genesis attempt to avert the Daleks' creation? Says who?

'A hundred years after the Doctor destroyed the Jagrafess, Satellite Five became the Game Station' - actually a lot quicker.

It teleported humans 'to be converted into Daleks' - only one human cell in a billion was worhty to be pure and blessed Dalek!

'When he was forced to change after defeating the Daleks on the Game Station he must have known it would not be long before he had to fight them again' - on the contrary, the Doc KNEW the Daleks had just been wiped out of the WHOLE of time and space by Ms Rose Bad Wolf Time Goddess Tyler.

'Rose is the Doctor's best friend' - not any more she isn't! These books were out of date before they were even PUBLISHED!

The Daleks 'knew that even one Dalek could wipe out the armies of Cybermen on Earth' - I think someone's taking Dalek boasting a bit too seriously...

'Each ship can carry an army of 2,000 Daleks' - OVER 2,000 actually.

'Which home in their prey' - should be home in ON their prey.

The Genesis Ark contained 'thousands' of Daleks. Hello! MILLIONS!

The Mission to Galacton short story is dead boring. Why doesn't the Dalek do a bit of elevating when crashing down the shaft? How can a badly-damaged Dalek have enough fire-power to cause a volcanic eruption by firing right into the core of the planet?

Rose:

Jackie and Pete got married in 1982 and five years later had a daughter. Oooooooooh dear. Yeah, that's what it says in the Script Book and all, but the wedding date was never canonised on-screen. And it's now been comprehensively destroyed by Rise of the Cybermen's claim that Jackie is forty years old in February 2007*. Which would mean she was married at the age of FIFTEEN and not only did she definitely not look it, that's totally illegal.

'Jackie loves Rose very much and would do anything for her' - except anything financial, judging by Jackie's 'Don't think I'm gonna bail you out' the morning after Rose's job exploded, with Rose VERY NEARLY in it.

There are 'billions' of Daleks in the year 200,100. IT'S HALF A MILLION, THE DOCTOR SAYS IT'S HALF A MILLION WHY DO YOU KEEP GETTING IT WRONG???

'They managed to capture [Blon] before she did any damage' - yeah, tell that to the entire team of European Safety Inspectors. Amongst others.

'Rose's next visit to her home time' - so you're ignoring all the novels, where Rose is always popping back to her home time. Fine, if the 'Slitheen' file hadn't obviously included The Monsters Inside!

The Stamp of Approval short story is pretty stupid. My Doctor would never decide to collect stamps. And explaining the stamp-making process is doubtless very educational, but maybe NOT when zombies are bashing down the door.

*It must have been 2007, cos Rose (the person) was 19 in Rose (the episode). And was (Father's Day) a few months old in November 1987. Therefore Rose was set in 2005, she returned home (Aliens of London) a year later in 2006, the Sycorax invasion was Christmas of the same year, School Reunion must have happened shortly afterwards, and according to Mickey in Rise of the Cybermen, they've arrived the February of the same year they left, i.e. 2007.

No, wait a minute...Rose would have been 19 in _2006_, therefore Rise must be 2008, so Jackie would have been FOURTEEN on a 1982 wedding day...but the new series doesn't FEEL like it's set that far in advance...this gives Rose's birthday as 27 April 1987, maybe she met the Doc in 2005 just before her birthday (except that he says she's still 19 in Dalek and she never has a 20th birthday we hear about)...has ANYONE got a clear timeline? Please?

The Doctor Who Files - The Sycorax

'Their love of fighting means they will not turn away from combat...their desire for victory at any price often wins out over honour' - I'm not sure that's entirely fair, they certainly scarpered from the Doctor fast enough.

The multiple choice questions are a bit easy. We might, perhaps, JUST have managed to get the what-do-Sycorax-wear-on-their-heads question correct (A. Skull helmet, B. Woolly hats, C. Straw boaters) WITHOUT the wacking great photo of a skull-masked Sycorax right underneath the question.

'Torchwood is one of the most secret organisations on Earth' - ah, that would be why they drive a big car with 'Torchwood' emblazoned all over it.

The Pilot Fish hijacked the Sycorax's teleport technology - thank you! AT LAST, a useful piece of information!

The Sycorax whip 'instantaneously disintegrates every atom of human flesh' - fine, whatever - how about an explanation of how the Doctor survived it unscathed?

'An elected champion of one side may issue a challenge...' - ELECTED? No-one elected the Tenth Doctor. And the challenge is 'to decide the ownership of the planet' - I don't think anyone's suggesting the Doctor now owns Earth.

There's no point in pretending this book is educational by throwing in that boring lecture on blood types. Not when you've just been discussing the Tricky Trumpet, the Terrible Tuba and the Trombone of Terror.

The Final Darkness short story - 'We laugh till we leak' - er, more information than strictly necessary, thanks. And how come this log survived, to fall into UNIT hands and get translated? Given that by the end of it the entire ship is blown into little snowflakes.

Mickey Files - SPOILERS FOR SEASON TWO

Mickey's only 5'5"??? He's a MIDGET! I'm only an inch shorter!

Jackie 'always got on well with Mickey' before Rose left. Like hell she did. If the groan of 'Here's himself' when Mickey arrived to comfort his nearly-blown-up girlfriend is anything to go by.

So his parents leave and his gran dies - we KNOW! Anyone prepared to cough up six quid for this thing is rather likely to have seen Rise of the Cybermen! And even if we hadn't, no need to tell us all this on p4 AND p12. Ditto for twice being told about him leaving to fight the Cybermen. And about his plastic counterpart. And about him deleting the Doctor from the Net. And about him calling the Doctor and Rose home. If you haven't got enough Mickey information to fill a pamphlet like this without repeating yourself all the time...don't write it in the first place.

Earth takes 364 days to orbit the sun? I thought it was 365 1/4?

The back cover has 'Mickey ,' - you do not put spaces before commas. And p13 has 'cyberman' uncapitalised.

The Slitheen was 'posing' as Mayor of Cardiff. I got the impression she WAS the bona fide Mayor of Cardiff? That she somehow got elected in Margaret's skin? If she'd skinned the last Mayor and pretended to be her/him, THAT would have been posing.

Mickey told Rose about Trisha because he was 'bored of her constant talking about her travels' - that's a rather harsh interpretation. Call me a sucker, but I thought it was because he was too principled to have sex with Rose under false pretenses.

'Mickey helped save the universe again, simply by going home' - uh? That's not MY interpretation of Doomsday.

Taking the Mickey short story - somewhat pointless. And what's this about 'The Doctor doesn't kill people. Even ugly alien people' - yes he does!

The Slitheen Files

Goes to a lot of trouble to avoid the word 'fart'. And claims there's a smell of decaying carbon - I thought it was calcium?

The Doctor and Rose thwarted the plan to nuke Earth? The Doctor and Mickey-the-idiot, you mean!

Margaret 'built a nuclear power station' - no she didn't. She hadn't even got round to abolishing Cardiff castle before the TARDIS turned up.

The Extrapolator 'began to open the rift' - what rift? (Alright, I know what rift, but that's the first time this book has mentioned one, and given its tendency to explain the bleeding obvious, several times, this is a strange omission.)

No Fun at the Fair short story - It doesn't even tell us which Doctor! Though given how hard these books are working to airbrush Docs 1-9 out of the picture, it's not hard to guess.

Rose thinks a zip-free head means you're not Slitheen. But the only Slitheen WE'VE ever seen with an obvious zip was the policeman who attacked Jackie - and who Rose never saw!

Rose is WAY too quick to decide that the Slitheen she's following is a goodie.

I love the 'Day to Remember' photo (Rose and a Slitheen in a heart shape). It's just a pity that Rose isn't soaked as the story clearly stated.

How and why was a Slitheen intending to run a funfair on Earth using human heads??

'Everything was OK now. The Doctor would make sure there'd be no Super Slitheen Space Spectacular' - er...HOW, exactly? If you're gonna have a cop-out 'The Doctor'll sort everything out now' ending then why not just write that as your FIRST line and not bother with the stupid story at all?

The Doctor Who Files - K-9

'He originally belonged to the Doctor, who gave him to his friend Sarah Jane Smith to look after' - can you COUNT the ways this sentence is wrong?! K-9 ORIGINALLY belonged to Professor Marius!!! (As even THIS book eventually explains, though not without mis-spelling it 'Professer' once). And the K-9s are different models - unlike the Doctor they should not be referred to by a generic 'him'. The original K-9 was a completely separate person (dog. Computer. Whatever.) from the one who had the misfortune to save Brendan from evil magic. And who on Earth thought it was supposed to be Sarah looking after K-9 and not the other way round??

'Other Owners: the Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith' - accepting for the sake of argument they're one generic K-9 creature...what about Leela and Romana? Again, the book does get round to mentioning 'em later, thus contradicting its original statements.

'Can recharge from any available power source' - since when!

'Rose travels with the Doctor now' - like hell she does. *Sob*

'Mickey thought the robot dog was really cool' - yeah, so cool he exiled himself to another UNIVERSE in order to prevent himself becoming a tin dog.

I know I might possibly have been driven to complain...ad nauseam...about the amount of repetition in these books, but...telling us six times, SIX TIMES!!!!! that the Doctor/Rose/Mickey/Sarah Jane met while investigating mysterious goings-on at a strange school is just bloody ridiculous. Anyone stupid enough to cough up money for this stuff should demand a refund.

Was K-9 really left in a crate in Aunt Lavinia's attic, as we're (repeatedly!) told? My memories of K-9 and Company are mercifully blurred.

'She does know that she will have many more adventures with K-9 in the future' - sadly not. Thanks to whoever's bright idea it was for them to have separate serieses.

'an other universe' - er, that should be 'another'.

A Dog's Life short story - Rather embarrassingly, I found this account of K-9's resurrection deeply touching. Though would police really tell Sarah 'Yes, well, never mind' when she refuses to tell them how she rendered two burglars unconscious? Not wanting to sound like a Daily Mail reader or anything, but they'd be far more likely to arrest her for assault.

GOD, what an insult to our quite-possibly-best-Companion-ever! Yes, two more pointless little Files have been inflicted on innocent fanatics, and NEITHER of them is about Donna! Add that to the pile of novels published starring that non-entity Martha while Donna was the current Companion and it all adds up to a policy of PERSECUTION!

The Doctor Who Files 13: The Sontarans by Justin Richards. (Did his parents never read little Ricky that fable about the dog in the manger?):

'They are all identical in appearance' - no they're not. Even just in the new series (where they usually have their helmets on) some are obviously taller than others, for starters.

'They have been at war with the Rutans for thousands of years'...'sworn enemies'...'million every four minutes in huge Muster Parades' (uh?)...yup, this certainly gives full rein to the Richards habit of repetition-to-the-point-of-catatonia. I'm amazed he didn't manage to slip in a few mentions of Big Ben while he was at it.

How the hell are kids supposed to know what 'bifurcated' means?

The Sontaran raid on the ATMOS Factory hardly qualifies as 'vital'. Pointless and counterproductive, more like.

Over four pages on previous Sontaran/Rutan stories! Blimey, usually the Files would rather eat a Kroton than admit that ANY Old Who exists. It's just a pity that said pages just tell us the same thing over and over again.

The bit about Rattigan destroying the Sontaran ship omits the two most important facts - that he sacrificed himself to do so. And that, approximately a billion times more importantly, that he stopped the DOCTOR from sacrificing himself to do that.

This is undecided as to whether 'clone world', 'medieval', and even 'ATMOS' should be capitalised or not. Also, there was no such thing as 'medieval Britain', only medieval England, medieval Scotland, etc.

'Donna accepted the renewed offer of a trip in the TARDIS' – isn't this a rather euphemistic way of saying that Donna barged aboard with her hat-box for a permanent stay whether the Doc wanted her or not?

So Martha 'helped the Doctor and Captain Jack Harkness defeat the Master' - er...loath as I am to give Martha any credit, THEY helped HER!

'When the Doctor and Donna meet her again, Martha is working with UNIT' - she's working FOR them. And Donna hasn't met her before.

'The Doctor has worked with UNIT - which stands for UNified Intelligence Taskforce - many times over many years' - during most of which it's the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, thank you.

ATMOS 'is fitted to 800 million cars across the whole world' - actually, no. There are 800 million cars on Earth, and ATMOS is fitted to half of them. *Counts on fingers* That would make 400 million cars, kiddies!

'The Doctor realises that ATMOS uses advanced alien technology' – Er...I think UNIT had already established that, it's why they sent for him in the first place.

'Luke Rattigan operates the Doctor's atmospheric converter' - ahem! It's LUKE'S atmospheric converter. 'The Doctor managed to create an Atmospheric Converter' - uh-oh...Richards just didn't put two and two together when Rattigan was seen proudly introducing his atmospheric converter and the Doctor was later seen waving an atmospheric converter around, did he...?

Blind Terror short story: Let me get this straight. Churl knows that Stavv is a filthy Rutan. Instead of just...y'know...killing him when he had the chance, Churl instead decides to restore the sight of a primitive! human! GIRL! so that SHE can save his life by killing Stavv. How...um...nice of him. Oh, and Rutan scoutships have top-secret details of their brand-new shape-changing abilities lying around on their computers. Yeah, whatever.

Other Great Files to collect: 12: The Master. The WHAT?! It's The TARDIS. TARDIS - Master. Master - TARDIS. How is it possible to get those two muddled up? (Well, except at the end of the telemovie when one swallows the other, but don't bother me with technicalities.) Just because the Master's absence from the Files is almost as much of a crime as Donna's doesn't mean they can just rewrite history like that.

Blimey, that's a hell of a lot of nits for such a pointless little thing. But hey, at least the quiz questions are more lively than usual.

Has anyone recently reminded Emily that she needs to take her medications?

What have I DONE?!

Well, whatever it was, here's more of it:

The Doctor Who Files 14: The Ood, by Moray Laing and, it goes without saying, Justin Richards.

The writing's a lot smaller than in the other Files. Which is a shame, given that there are only three episodes' worth of stuff to talk about. Thus necessitating an outrageous (if perfectly normal for the Files) amount of repetition as the events of said episodes are regurgitated again and again in a rather flat way ('As the Doctor and Donna left in the TARDIS, the Ood said that they would never forget them') for our delectation. (Though obviously there just isn't the space to explain minor matters like how the hell the translator ball becomes a deadly weapon.)

Why is 'Hind-Brain' capitalised but not 'forebrain'?

'Donna...soon realised that the Ood...are no more than slaves' - well, I wouldn't say it was SOON. When they were on the auction blocks she was too busy worrying about looking single, it was only when they were stumbling along with whips cracked at them that the penny dropped.

Isn't 'millions of years ago' a bit short for the before-the-beginning-of-the-universe chaining of the Beast?

Disappearing Act short story: not only is it strongly reminiscent of the short story in the Captain Jack Files (the nasty greedy showman exploiting his victim's alien talents), it's unconvincing (since when has Ood telepathy worked like that? How could Agent Ratner have decided that checking security videos of his suspect was 'pointless'?) and it actually has the bad guy saying 'I'd have gotten away with it if it weren't for that meddling Doctor'...

it actually has the bad guy saying 'I'd have gotten away with it if it weren't for that meddling Doctor'...

Really? Wow! It deserves an honorable mention or something for that.

I mean, I didn't know bad guys said that anymore, ever.

I don't think it's even being said ironically. It's just...there. *Shakes head despairingly*

Bah, humbug. I see the BBC have stuck together the short stories from the fourteen Files in new (and admittedly gorgeous) packaging, and are trying to flog 'em ALL OVER AGAIN to fans who have already paid eighty-four pounds for the privilege of reading these pieces of drivel. With one new story thrown in just so the poor innocent fanatical completist will have no choice but to cough up a tenner, like Cosgrove leaping over the cliff after the fake time machine in Trading Futures...

They have no shame. Why not just put on a highwayman's mask and leap out at fans shouting 'Your money or your life!'?

Martha by Moray Laing (though it goes without saying that Justin Richards hogged the short story for himself):

'Like the rest of the Earth, medical student Martha Jones knew that aliens existed' - that's a bit over-optimistic, isn't it?

'This amazing man, with his even more amazing spaceship, travelled across the universe to ask her out on a date.' - Where do I start? The TARDIS is NOT more amazing than the Doctor! Neither is 'spaceship' a particularly good way of describing it. Nor is there the slightest indication the Doc bothered to move more than a few miles and hours to get Martha. AND IT'S NOT A DATE!

God, the Martha Anatomy page is hysterical. '[Arrow to mouth] The Doctor makes her smile. [Arrow to eyes] Martha can't believe what she's seeing half the time!' It also helpfully explains that she looks similar to Adeola...while pointing at her jeans for some reason.

'Until she listened to his pulse and realised he had two hearts!' - you TAKE pulses. You LISTEN to hearts - which is actually what Martha did.

Tish is short for 'Letita'?

How can this blame Yvonne removing the earpiece for Adeola's death!

Why ask a Macra question when you don't mention 'em in the rest of the book?

'While he worked out a clever way of getting the TARDIS back' - he didn't work it out! Sally gave him written instructions!

'No two days are the same' - well, they obviously WERE during Human Nature or Blink...

Needle Point short story: OMG! The DOCTOR has an etheric beam locator...Oh, and how dare he assume a stranded alien is male?

The TARDIS by...um, actually I don't know who it's by. Except that pages 18-21 and The Secret of the Stones are by Justin Richards, apparently.

Bit weird to call the TARDIS a 'spaceship' on the back cover.

The TARDIS is 'the Doctor's best friend' (we're told twice) - it bloody well SHOULD be. But isn't.

Suddenly switches from referring to the TARDIS as 'it' to referring to the TARDIS as 'she'. Though admittedly a little confusion is understandable.

'The TARDIS is an important part of the Doctor's ability to regenerate and he couldn't survive without her' - oh, stuff n'nonsense. She was only an integral part of his FIRST regeneration. And he didn't seem remotely surprised to have survived the TARDIS's 'destruction' in Frontios or Journey's End.

'Martha's first impression of the TARDIS was just like every other human's who has entered it - she couldn't believe it was really bigger on the inside!' If that's the case, why go on about bloody Martha the whole time? And aren't we forgetting dear Benton's sang-froid?

'Any enemy of the Doctor's is an enemy of the TARDIS' - really? Certainly didn't seem that way when she eloped with the Master in Utopia.

'The Family of Blood used a stolen Time Agent's Vortex Manipulator to track the Doctor and his TARDIS through time and space' - they did??

'Sally Sparrow helped to return the TARDIS to the Doctor and turn the Angels to stone, before they could do any damage' - BEFORE THEY COULD DO ANY DAMAGE??? Tell that to Billy Shipton!

'The Doctor thought his oldest enemy, the Master, had died in the Great Time War' - no he didn't. He didn't even know the Master had been resurrected for said Time War.

'The Doctor could fix [the chameleon circuit] if he wanted to' - I wouldn't bet on it *coughAttackoftheCybermencough*

'"Well, how about the Princes in the Tower, or have you done that too?" "Twice"' - nice reference to Kingmaker audio and Sometime Never... EDA? Except that the two of 'em are mutually exclusive, to put it mildly. And if Martha's so interested in the Princes she wants to go there and find out what happened...why doesn't she just ASK the Doctor now she knows that he knows...?

It's a bit unfair to retroactively nitpick a story, but that's sure as hell not gonna stop me...so Stonehenge was built because the TARDIS kept appearing there to see why Stonehenge was built? The hell it was. We all know it was built to mark the imprisonment of the most feared being in all the universe...

File 1: The Doctor:

Call me pedantic, but a book devoted to the Doctor might actually try featuring pictures of MORE THAN ONE OF HIM. It's not that I don't adore every moment of Tennanty goodness, and admittedly it often FELT, during his era, as if he was the One and Only, but...would a snapshot of Eccy be too much to ask? (Obviously 1-8 would be COMPLETELY beyond the pale, at least till they suddenly became fashionable in Next Doctor...)

How can the 'Doctor Anatomy' not mention his two hearts?! And there's not much point in pointing at his fighting hand if it's not visible...

'Over time, the only piece that was left of each Mondasian was the brain' - wrong! They had arms too!

How dare this canonise the Attack of the Graske, whilst ignoring so many Old Who enemies of the Doc...

The Doctor Who Stories - obviously the effort of ripping us off with new Files grew too much, so instead of giving us a PROPER Master File they just stuck a short story on the end of the other fourteen collected stories from the Files. 'Speech Day' (by Justin Richards...of course).

If the Archangel Network is up and running (as it ought to be, Saxon's already Defence Secretary and Next Prime Minister) why is no one at the school hypnotised until his speech? And how did the Network suddenly manage to insert him into the old school photographs - even to the sight of the unhypnotised Curtis? And since when has the laser screwdriver managed to embed memories?

I see Amazon are listing a Doctor Who Files: Collector's Edition. For eighty-four pounds and ninety-eight pence you get 'the previously unpublished Donna and Master files and additional updates.' Lovely.

If there was ANY excuse for these shameless cash-ins it would be to give ignorant kids a glimpse of the richness of Who's 43-year history, but no, they go to mind-boggling lengths to pretend that nothing happened pre-2005.

OK, NOW I know what they're for.

The three-year-old with whom I'm staying spotted the Captain Jack one and went to considerable lengths to kiss the (it goes without saying GORGEOUS) cover as her seven-year-old brother held it out of reach. Hours of hilarity ensued.

So as long as you stick to the covers and don't do anything stupid like READING 'em...these books are actually rather lovely.

Ever wondered what Peter Capaldi's doctor would look like as one of the Mr Men? Wonder no more...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37618297

And will Emily's reaction be "Want now" or "Kill it"? ;)

WANT Twelve and (particularly) Four NOW.

Rather perplexed by the other two.

I'm not saying that we SHOULDN'T have a blue or mauve Doctor, in fact one is probably well overdue, it's just that Eleven and One (bizarre choice of Doctors, btw, you'd think Tennant would be a shoo-in) AREN'T blue or mauve.

I'd've thought Emily's reaction would be 'What's a Mr Men?' Apparently she' more informed than I am.

Oh, they're ubiquitous in the UK. I never read one, of course, but I remember being outraged as a child when the accusations of sexism against 'Mr Men' resulted in the creation of the 'Little Miss' series. Because of course females are LITTLE.

Well, they are smaller than men, on average.

<<ducks>>

Actually I suspect it reflects hegemonic masculinity rather than the actual physical size of weirdly-coloured badly-drawn fictional characters but hey, what do I know...I'm only a woman...

...Oops, did I say 'woman'? OBVIOUSLY I meant 'LITTLE woman'...

Goddesses but we need a female Doctor. (Also a female American President if it's not too much trouble...)

(Also a female American President if it's not too much trouble...)

Well, for good or bad, you're going to get your wish. The way Trump's campaign is now imploding, Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the United States. And I said good or bad not because I would have liked to see Trump in the White House, but because I don't think Hillary is what the US needs at this time. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or even Jill Stein would have been orders of magnitudes better.

The way Trump's campaign is now imploding, Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the United States

Yeah, to be honest, I'm not 100% convinced that people who were going to vote for Trump are gonna be put off by the revelation that he's a groping misogynist.

I mean, did ANY of them SERIOUSLY think that he WASN'T?

And who takes sexual assault seriously, anyway? Just look at The Fall of Yquitaine. THE EIGHTH DOCTOR didn't notice that he's just raped the TARDIS, NICK WALTERS - the writer who'd just made the Eighth Doctor rape the TARDIS - didn't notice, WHAT THE HELL DOES IT TAKE!

the Eighth Doctor rape the TARDIS

How is that even possible!?

Read Fall of Yquitaine.

It was Compassion the human-TARDIS, by the way, not Sexy.

Which is just as well cos an awful lot of people would have said that anyone calling herself 'Sexy' was asking for it.

(bizarre choice of Doctors, btw, you'd think Tennant would be a shoo-in)

Ah. It turns out that all twelve* Doctors WILL be immortalised in Mr Men form, it's just they're starting with One, Four, Eleven and Twelve.

*They seem to have forgotten about the existence of poor dear John Hurt, which makes me surprisingly indignant for someone who spent YEARS in denial about this whole War Doctor thing.

(Also a female American President if it's not too much trouble...)

Well, for good or bad, you're going to get your wish. The way Trump's campaign is now imploding, Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the United States.

I can only shake my head, reading this now...

'Gentle absurdity that makes the two universes surprisingly suitable bedfellows' - the Guardian's take on the Mr Men books.

Though I'm afraid The Fan Show has pretty much killed off any inclinations I might have had to give 'em the benefit of the doubt...

Dr Twelfth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSmKk2eCfu0

Read by Michelle Gomez (Missy).
Styled on Mr Men, this is a reading of a book in the World of Roger Hargreaves with the Twelfth Doctor and Missy.
A very fun chase throughout history of the Doctor and Missy and it manages things that I don’t think the live action TV series would have been able to achieve.
Funny that as the chase ends the Doctor reveals the important thing he has to do.

Hope you don't mind, I moved this to our brand new Mr Men section*. (I wasn't expecting 'em to get themselves ANIMATED. I'm an old-fashioned dead-tree type of person.)

Missy 'was also a Time Lord' - sorry, which bit of 'Time Lady please, I'm old-fashioned' did you somehow not understand?

'Nowadays, it seemed like there was no good in Missy' - NOWADAYS?! - 'She acted all bad, but the Doctor knew better' - ???!!!

Why DOES Missy degrade herself with a stupid Vortex Manipulator instead of a beautiful black-roundel-walled TARDIS of her own?

And since when has Sexy been so pinpoint-accurate at following anyone with a Vortex Manipulator...well, actually, ANYONE?

'Why was Missy stealing all these jewels? Were they Christmas presents?' - er, yes, Doctor, there's nothing the Master enjoys more than giving her friends generous presents to celebrate the birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ, well, that and accidentally wiping out a few galaxies.

'The Doctor was not at all happy...All this chasing Missy through time meant he had missed lunch. And now he was hungry' - don't be silly, like Our Hero hasn't missed lunch EVERY DAY for the last millennia or two and still NEVER gets hungry.

How come NONE of those very-lively-looking Cybermats attack the Doctor?

'"But you have to allow me to explain my devious plan," whined Missy' - OK, it's a fair cop, this is SPOT-ON MASTER.

If the Doctor's already in the Stone Age, why the hell would he go BACK in time for lunch? What does he want to eat, a RAW DINOSAUR?

Is it just me or are these TOTALLY NOT CANON?

*Our brand new Mr Men section? Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Blimey, judging by the merchandise, the Mr Men books have followed in the footsteps of every OTHER Who novel by gouging an eyeball out...

The Doctor Fourth book is great fun. Get a sense of humor.

I HAVE got a sense of humour. What I don't have is a copy of Doctor Fourth. These things cost A FIVER! And so far my embarrassed rummaging through inordinate piles of Mr Men books in charity shops hasn't borne fruit...

You'll countless pounds on crappy BF audios but not on the chance to witness the joy that is DALE THE DALEK?!?!

You'll countless pounds on crappy BF audios

Well, OBVIOUSLY this is a hideous mistake I don't want to repeat for the books as well, which are bound to turn up second-hand sooner or later...Plus, the audios have their own Nitcentral threads, obviously if this was the case for Mr Men books I'd HAVE to buy 'em just to write the reviews if the libraries didn't cough up...

but not on the chance to witness the joy that is DALE THE DALEK?!?!

That - is - WHAAAAAAAAAAAT!

T is for TARDIS:

Mildly adorable. Though everyone having little circles of rouge on their cheeks gets tiring, fast.

D: Alright, so you're sneaking in extras for every letter, I get it, there's just no way Matt would throw a donut in a dustbin.

Also, Four offers a LOT of people a jelly baby, but he'd draw the line at Five, the git who unravelled the Sacred Scarf.

H: At least the hearts are in the right places, which is more than you can say for Power of Three.

P is for parting (complete with pics of Rose and Ten on opposite pages) is HEARTBREAKING.

X is for eXterminate is just CHEATING.

And as for Y is for allons-Y!...

'Dr. First' is the most thrilling adventure of the first Doctor that I've seen this Christmas. It's a pre-'An Unearthly Child' story about how the Hartnell Doctor defeats a Cyberman invasion of London and - more importantly - meets a cat.

One small nit: at several points in the book, the Doctor is depicted as a giant head on spindly legs with no actual body in between. Also Susan is shown to be bright blue, but since her original episodes were in black and white, we can't say that this isn't how she was intended to be.

'Dr. First' is the most thrilling adventure of the first Doctor that I've seen this Christmas.

Obviously you're a little confused. Are you a Morbius Faces kinda person?

It's a pre-'An Unearthly Child' story about how the Hartnell Doctor defeats a Cyberman invasion of London and - more importantly - meets a cat.

Ahh, BLESS!

I'm so glad One got the joy of encountering an oochie in happier circumstances than Planet of Giants.

One small nit: at several points in the book, the Doctor is depicted as a giant head on spindly legs with no actual body in between.

Well, it DOES seem (Five Docs, Twice Upon a Time) that a first incarnation might be a bit fluid for its entire existence, not just its first eighteen hours...

Also Susan is shown to be bright blue, but since her original episodes were in black and white, we can't say that this isn't how she was intended to be.

Five Docs and the fact Coal Hill didn't spend its ENTIRE time pointing and laughing at her suggest otherwise.

Dr. Second:

'Why are we here?' 'I'm not sure, but the TARDIS brought us here, and if the TARDIS brought us here, it brought us here for a good reason. A very good reason.' - WHAT! The Doc didn't discover THAT particular fact until his Eleventh incarnation, and that was only because Sexy spelt it out for him in words of one syllable...

Victoria appears to be naked except for a pair of high-heeled shoes. At least the Doctor gets a bow tie and shoes, and Jamie a hat, shoes and socks...

The Doctor's reaction to seeing a Yeti is 'Well, that's odd, I didn't think that Yetis were real'? Of course they're real (in the Whoniverse anyway, even that moron Travers managed to spot the genuine article) and anyway, shouldn't he assume it's one of the Great Intelligence's bunch and leap backwards with a shriek of terror? Hell, people couldn't even mention disused jetties in Enemy of the World without him nervously mistaking 'em for Yetis...

'The Doctor looked down at the fallen Yeti. "Look! It's not real. It is a robot!"' - well, DUH. '"Somebody must be controlling them," said Victoria. "But who?"' - er...THE GREAT INTELLIGENCE?

'"I think these beasties have made me their king," [Jamie] said. "It seems that this here pyramid is the Yeti controller. And I am now in control!"' - UH?

Dr. Seventh:

Ace tries to blow up a Cheetah Person? Has she no sense of SISTERHOOD?

It has to be admitted, Mr Man Master is magnificent.

Dr. Eleventh:

River Song's yellow curly hair is the sort of abomination that keeps making me think she's supposed to be Dr. Sixth, till I see the high-heeled boots...

Dr. Ninth:

COULD you knock an Auton's head off by throwing a cabbage at it?

What - the - ••••? The Ninth Doctor is travelling with Captain Jack Harkness when they encounter shop-girl Rose who's soon under attack by Autons? Who the HELL do you think you ARE, rewriting our sacred Rose?

Victoria appears to be naked except for a pair of high-heeled shoes. At least the Doctor gets a bow tie and shoes, and Jamie a hat, shoes and socks...

0.o That's in a children's book?

Yeah, but don't worry too much...

Dr Men

Victoria being naked reminds me of that time i was playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - decidedly not meant for kids - with the avatar of the Candy Suxx character... who wears nothing but an American flag bikini and has um.. ample chest assets. My little nephew kept commenting on the lady on the screen...

Dr. First:

'The Doctor did not like Earth.' - The HELL he didn't!

'It was a small, ugly planet populated by particularly irritating people.' - Well, YEAH, but what's your POINT?

It's gone for pale-green for Sexy's console. I'm now in a state of confusion about whether this is TOTALLY UNCANONICAL! or actually a bit TOO canonical...

'I am not Doc, I am the Doctor. I am a Time Lord' - er, Hartnell NEVER EVER told ANYONE he was a Time Lord. (And neither, for that matter, did Troughton, at least until he was practically on his DEATHBED.) And he certainly has no reason to tell a couple of flower-power people he's taken an instant dislike to.

What kind of freak gives a sigh of relief on encountering a cat, instead of a cry of 'Oochie-coochie come to mummy!' (or words to that effect)?

The Doctor encounters Cybermen BEFORE Tenth Planet? Well, I suppose it explains why he got round to doing a bit of research, pre-Tenth Planet...

'Cybermen could not run' - why the hell NOT! (Come to think of it...they DON'T, do they.)

Great, now Cybermen can be disabled by radio waves, like they needed any MORE weaknesses...

Dr. Fourth:

Dalek number Z403 is 'better known to his friends as Dale' - Daleks don't have names (unless they're members of the Cult of Skaro). Daleks don't have friends (even if they're members of the Cult of Skaro).

'I never travel anywhere without a jelly baby!' - actually you DO, and then you have to pretend that dolly mixtures are jelly babies and it all gets quite confusing...

Dr. Eighth:

'The Doctor turned the TARDIS on' - what blasphemy is this! You don't TURN THE TARDIS ON!

It's sheer racism to claim that Silurians and Sea Devils are 'equally ugly'.

Silurians just want to play ping-pong on the beach and build sandcastles? A likely story.

Mind you, the Sea Devil/Silurian interaction is considerably more convincing and nuanced than in Warriors of the Deep...

What kind of freak gives a sigh of relief on encountering a cat, instead of a cry of 'Oochie-coochie come to mummy!' (or words to that effect)?

Come on! He knows you don't insult such superior beings by addressing them in this offensively infantile manner.

THEY LIKE IT.

I mean, sometimes it gives them vast pleasure to disdain it, but usually they appreciate a bit of spontaneous worship, no matter how clumsily expressed.

Doctor Who Counting Book

On the plus side - JODIE! JODIE!

On the...less-plus-y-side....you're NEVER gonna teach anyone to count with blatant lies about there only being ONE DOCTOR...

Dr Tenth:

The Sontarans really do make EXCELLENT Mr Men.

And that Ogron's ADORABLE.

'"I will happily fight you for this planet," suggested General Staal. "I'm not going to fight you," said the Doctor' - why the hell NOT! It'd hardly be his first time duelling for a planet...

'It was a long walk back to the TARDIS, and the Doctor and General Staal had to cross a desert' - WTF!!

Sontarans do not eat sausages. Well, obviously darling Strax will have sampled a few horse-sausages by now, but OBVIOUSLY the rest of 'em recharge via the probic vent instead.

Dr Fifth:

'Five minutes in the Zero Room would set the Doctor right' - yeah, if he hadn't JETTISONED IT.

For some reason Tegan makes a perfect Mr Man while Nyssa and Adric (notwithstanding his badge for mathematical excellence)...don't.

Dr Sixth:

The Time Continuum does not get wound up by a key - this isn't TORCHWOOD, y'know.

The Doctor just LEAVES the Rani on that planet? Sure, he's unhypnotised the locals (since when does she hypnotise locals?) but surely they still won't be a match for her?

Dr Third:

This is the SECOND time today I've been told that Bessie is a 'little yellow car'. (Am rereading Last of the Gadarene. Well, someone's got to.) IS she little?

Jo Grant and Liz Shaw - together? What does this think it IS, The Wages of Sin?

Awww, the Ice Warriors are SO CUTE.

Dr Tenth Christmas Surprise!:

It's got a 'TO:' and 'FROM:' page, suggesting a certain lack of faith that anyone would buy this for THEMSELVES...

'The Doctor sat in front of a digital crackling fire and wished that he could light a real one. But his TARDIS console room did not have a chimney' - so reconfigure the interior dimensions then! Or move into another TARDIS room WITH a chimney!

Alas, any Who story involving Christmas-trees-firing-baubles and robot-Santas and scary-Snowmen can't help but feel a little on the unoriginal side.

Oh, now they're meeting the REAL Santa? How does that fit in with, well, ANYTHING?

They 'carried their Christmas tree back to the TARDIS' - but it's an alien killer! Just cos it's been short-circuited doesn't mean you should let it poke around in Sexy's innards, especially after you specifically said you wanted a REAL Christmas tree!

Honestly, has the Doctor no sense of RESPONSIBILITY? He doesn't even THINK about discovering who is behind all the Christmas-cliche-attacks, let alone hanging around to stop the invasion (or whatever-it-is) once the Snowmen and Santas have disentangled themselves.

I hope Jodie gets a Mr. Men book and not a Little Miss one...

She has a Dr Thirteenth book, just like all her other selves (well, all except War).

One Doctor, Two Hearts:

I CAN'T STAND THE CONFUSION IN MY MIND!

Will no one THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

OK, so the cover's lovely (JODIE! JODIE!) but...there isn't REALLY only one Doctor, is there. There's Thirteen...er, fourteen...well, technically fifteen...

1: One ancient Doctor - nonsense, Hartnell's YOUNGER than the rest of 'em, you morons!

2: Two beating hearts - Well, three cos the Doc's got two and Rose has got one, but they're standing on a beach holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes in a suspiciously Journey's End kinda way, so really the Human-Clone-Hand-Doctor should only have ONE heart (not the two helpfully if bizarrely shown in your picture) and also what's he doing in the brown stripy suit...

3: Three scary witches: OK, there WERE three scary witches so it WOULD be fair enough except that IT'S GOTTA BE NIMON HOW CAN ANYONE SEE THE LETTER THREE AND NOT SCREAM 'THREE! I HAVE SEEN THREE!' (at the most inopportune moments, sometimes)?

Just to refresh our memories...

4: Four works of art: But these are Mona Lisas! There were seven!

5: Five all together: Except that they WEREN'T all together in The Five Doctors, were they...*sob*...

6: Six angels cry: Angels don't cry and there were only four when Sally Sparrow's around.

7: Seven stocky soldiers: When were there even as many/few as seven Sontarans hanging around Martha? (NB: It's possible and I'm not rewatching Sontaran Stratagem/Poison Sky to check but my money's on this book getting it hopelessly wrong, as ever.)

8: Eight friends to fly: But TARDISes are designed for SIX pilots, Donna and Jackie shouldn't be at the controls and where's the second Tenth Doctor?!

9: Nine made of plastic: Again, it's theoretically possible Rose was chased by nine Autons but it's not bloody likely.

10: Ten in the clouds: There were six billion Toclafane you idiots.

11: Eleven Time Lord messages: It's really hard to tell in that scene but...this might actually be correct. Which is highly annoying.

12: Twelve bowing out: WERE there ever twelve Cybermen around (eleven partially converted plus CyberBill)? And for all his 'Here I fall' speak, Capaldi refused to bow out till Twice Upon a Time...

13: Thirteen just arriving: Well, unfortunately she's in THAT costume so she's been around a few days...

14: Fourteen from the dark: Actually I count sixteen Cybermen walking down the steps of St Paul's.

15: Fifteen fearsome creatures: Well, the only time there were that many different varieties of Daleks together there were a LOT more than fifteen of 'em.

16: Sixteen silent marks: Oh for heaven's sake, I can't keep iPlayering my way around all the stories...someone count the number of marks on Amy's face the next time they're Day-of-the-Moon-ing.

17: Seventeen from the sea: I seem to remember Sea Devils only emerge from the sea six at a time. Eight absolute maximum.

18: Eighteen made of gold: There were NOT eighteen stupid angels on the Titanic.

19: Nineteen years of age: Yeah, Rose IS supposed to be nineteen, though if you start looking at her mother's date of birth and marriage and suchlike things go to hell in a handbasket really fast...

20: Twenty hands to hold: What the HELL? Why is Leela in there when (bar the Five Docs page) everything else is New Who?

OK, I'm not gonna nitpick the endpapers, my brain is just in meltdown.

There's a...Benny colouring book...??

Looks like it.

Dr Thirteenth:

How the hell does Yaz know it's the day before her birthday?

Graham makes a particularly good Mr Man.

'She flew cross space to the planet of Sontar, where she had heard there was a bakery' - WTF!

'Which was a bit of a surprise, as the Sontarans were a terrible, warlike people who liked nothing better than fighting' - well, QUITE. (I mean, HIDEOUS racist generalisation given DARLING Strax, but...QUITE.)

Not exactly an all-time classic but hey, at least they didn't call it Little Miss Thirteenth.

The Runaway TARDIS:

Lizzie TELLS her parents she's running away and they don't even try to stop her?

Has the Doc not learnt to LOCK THE •••• DOOR since the child-invasion of That Abomination With The Trees?

JODIE!'s costume actually looks rather - fetching? Suitable? Not-embarrassing? at long last. Yes, it's eminently suitable...for a child's picture-book.

RED lights flashed? Don't you mean...mauve?

Hmm. Do we have any ideas what COLOUR dinosaurs should be? Cos Who might just have produced some even less convincing than Invasion of the Dinosaurs' dinosaurs of happy memory...

*Peers suspiciously at Sphinx* I don't THINK it's got the face of Elvis Presley like's it's supposed to...? (Fifth Doctor audio The Eye of the Scorpion.) Of course, faces aren't exactly my forte.

Why are the Doc and Lizzie peering out of the shut TARDIS doors at the fish? CAN you see out of Sexy's windows? And can't the New Who TARDIS extrude air-pockets and suchlike?

The Doc needs GLORP help to help fix the TARDIS? Since when has s/he EVER turned to Lesser Beings to lend a hand with Sexy? I mean, give or take Logopolis and we all know how well THAT turned out for the Doctor...and the universe...

Is the Doctor trying to yank one of the TARDIS's panels up like she's ROSE TYLER WITH A BIG YELLOW TRUCK or something?

SHOULD a kids' book push the idea that you should hug strangers all the time quite so...enthusiastically?

Hang on...Blorp is cut off from its own planet and its own people by eons and universes (I exaggerate slightly) and this is some sort of HAPPY ENDING? How can Lizzie hide it? Torchwood and UNIT may be gone but SOMEONE'S gonna pop round to dissect it at some point...

That was...surprisingly fine. Aside from that bit at the end: 'Though the movie and TV versions came first, you'll wonder if they weren't adaptations of these books, instead of the other way around!' - I really won't.

Do we have any ideas what COLOUR dinosaurs should be?

For some of them we have good enough fosils to make an educated guess. Their main palette seemed to contain mostly white, black and shades of red and brown, although brighter colors for some purposes, like sexual displays, have not been ruled out.

Oh-kay. Either you are mistaken (impossible! Well, aside from that time you PROMISED me a President Hillary Clinton...) or this book is WRONG (say it ain't so!) or those red-and-blue, yellow-and-orange, blue-and-green, purple-and-green dinosaurs were in a state of extreme sexual arousal deeply improper for a children's picture book...

Does it matter.

Just a bunch of kids books.

aside from that time you PROMISED me a President Hillary Clinton...

Yeah, sorry about that.

Yeah, sorry about that.

We would have had a President straight out of The Golden Girls.

We would have had a President straight out of The Golden Girls.

Betty White as president would be ok with me!

Does it matter.

Just a bunch of kids books.

That's entirely beside the point!

We have our Nitcentrally duty!

Knock! Knock! Who's There? Joke Book:

Not terribly good, to be honest.

'What did the Fourth Doctor's scarf say to his hat? "I'll go around, and you go on ahead."' - it should be HANG around.

The Sixth Doctor section has nothing to do with his era and, worse, contains the lines 'Where does the Doctor go to the toilet? His TURD-IS.' Even Colin doesn't deserve THAT.

All those jokes about Judoon stupidity ('The Master escaped by giving the arresting officer a card with "Pease turn over" written on both sides') are feeling like an insult to JODIE! seeing as she managed to get CAPTURED by them.

Oh dear. You didn't pay for this, did you?

Got it out of the library and obviously would never pay £5.99 for it but let's face it, as soon as it turns up in a charity shop I'll be handing over good cash for this thing due to my misfortunate fanatical completism...

These are kids books. You ain't gonna get Hamlet.

I didn't want Hamlet but ONE GOOD JOKE would have been nice.

Good point.

Not exactly an all-time classic but hey, at least they didn't call it Little Miss Thirteenth.

Adam Hargreaves in DWM (2017) re doing a JODIE!: 'That could be the first Little Miss Doctor Who' *sighs, snarls, gnashings of teeth*

On a slightly redemptive note, it's cute that Twelve is the only one with angular corners, to suit his character.

Eccleston 'has no really obvious facial feature'? Even if the guy's BLIND there's DIALOGUE to help jog his sanity:

DOCTOR: My nose has special powers.
NANCY: Yeah? That's why it's -
DOCTOR: What?
NANCY: Nothing.
DOCTOR: What?
NANCY: Nothing. Do your ears have special powers too?