The Brilliant Book of Doctor Who 2011:

God, this is...well, 'brilliant' is a strong word, so I'm going with 'really rather good'. Lots of expansion on each S5/31 episode, some great little interviews and deleted scenes...I'm now feeling ROBBED that we didn't get one of these for each of the 30 previous seasons.

The Doctor 'claims he just wants a quiet life' - well, sure, he's said something along those lines ONCE in the last 900 years...

'The Doctor is never still, never bored, never cruel or cowardly' - SOMEONE hasn't seen Tom in Leisure Hive, or Matt in Vincent, or Tennant in Doctor's Daughter, or Troughton in Three Docs...

'He never has a plan' - oh, now you're just being RIDICULOUS.

'Did you know...Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling grew up in Tutshill, just forty miles from Leadworth' - god, that must be the single most pointless 'fact' I've encountered in my life.

Blimey, Churchill grows up SERIOUSLY fast between 1879 and 1882 - his spelling, handwriting, entire personality just CHANGE.

'the notebooks found amongst his possessions upon his death last year...Further enquiries should be forwarded to Colonel Amanda Prince of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce' - Churchill died in 1965. When - hello! - it was the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. And would have been HIGHLY UNLIKELY to have a female Colonel. And come to think of it, would UNIT even have EXISTED in '66?

Ah bless, Eccy in a laurel wreath! Dorable! SO not fair we never got to see him in ANY different clothing during his tragically brief weeks of life (unless you count the sketch Clive shows Rose).

'But, with Doctor Who adventures spanning everything from medieval times to the far future, their job often involves a great deal of stitching ad sewing. They can't just go buy a load of clothes from Top Shop' - what an unfortunate remark. Given that the general response to costumes in most Who episodes is 'They just went and bought a load of clothes from Top Shop, didn't they'...

There's an irritating tendency in the 'Behind the Scenes' article to assume that certain positions are male. Before inconsistently throwing in a few 'he or she's.

'Next stop Leadworth Register Office? Assuming that's how you get married in Leadworth. Maybe you just put a tourist in a Wicker Man' - god I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE all the deleted scenes. Unfortunately the result is that I'm foaming at the mouth with fury that we were denied these on-screen - or even on the DVD extras. They'd have gone a long way to restoring the visceral emotion of the RTG Years that was inexplicably missing in Season Five.

(Though I can really live without Rory's stirring declaration that the Doctor has given him faith - even maybe in life after death. Not only is that mind-bogglingly infuriating but it begs the question of why the hell he (and every other Companion ever) don't bother pumping the Doctor for information on this rather important topic...(Alright, so there IS life after death for Rory, but that's entirely beside the point, OK?))

Romana becomes a HISTORIAN? For some reason taking liberties with HER feels wrong, whereas expanding on Season Five feels like fair game.

'[The Ogri] survived by draining the blood from human victims supplied by the followers of a pagan goddess' - did NOT! Picked on campers and things! Those poor maligned pagans only attempted ONE human sacrifice - and were scared off by an old lady on a bicycle. Plus their intended victim wasn't even human!

There's a plaque under the TARDIS console saying 'Build site: Gallifrey Blackhole Shipyard. Type 40. Build date: 1963. Authorised for use by qualified Time Lords only by the Shadow Proclamation' - luckily this blasphemy occurs in Amy's Choice, but SURELY the a) date, b) claim the TARDIS was built not grown, and c) idea that the TIME LORDS would ask permission to use their own timeships from a couple of albino women should have tipped the Doctor off AT ONCE that this is a REALLY UNCONVINCING dream? (Plus the book goes on to mention the 'Proclomation'. It's better proof-read than most Who books, but that's not saying much.)

'Rory's death is only the sixth time we have seen one of the Doctor's companions killed on screen (and the fourth to later be revealed as only temporary!)' - before going on to list Katarina, Adric, Peri, Grace, Chang-Lee and Astrid. If you're counting Chang-Lee and Astrid you can bloody well count Sara Kingdom too!

OK, I have to confess I didn't read much of the 'Absolutely everything we learned from Doctor Who this series' section - partly because the tiny writing caused me considerable eye-strain, but mostly because I'm doing my best to forget as much of said season as possible in preparation for a glorious rewatching (I'm sick of waiting for the box set to come down in price and have informed my mother that I'll be getting it for a combined Christmas/birthday present). But already I spotted several mistakes - we hardly LEARNED that the TARDIS has a library or a pool, that the psychic paper can get messages, what a perception filter does, etc etc...

The short stories are the only disappointment. The Silurian one is a watered-down rip-off of the brilliant Cave Monsters prologue, while Umwelts for Hire - by Brian Aldiss! - is a terribly-written ('his hearts were made glad') pointless piece of dreary waffle.

Doctor Who Annual 2006 - the one with Eccy on the cover, CLEAR PROOF that it wasn't 2006 BECAUSE THERE WAS NO ECCY IN 2006! NONE! NONE! NONE!

£6.99 is a LOT of money. They might at least have paid for a DECENT illustrator.

'He has seen his whole world destroyed' - drop the euphemisms, we all know he pressed the button. (Seized the Moment. Whatever.)

The Doc can regenerate his body 'if it is injured or threatened' - if he topped himself every time he was THREATENED he'd've got through all 507 lives by now.

'Although the man within remains the same, his outward behaviour and habits are drastically altered' - The man within does NOT remain the same, AND his behaviour doesn't always alter drastically...is this suggesting he just puts on his outward behaviour for a laugh, or what?

The First Doctor is 'lovable and kind-hearted'!! 'His great wisdom always shone through'!!!

Should Sharaz-Jek really be hyphenated?

'The Doctor is not an irresponsible traveller. He is not a meddler, and he doesn't go looking for trouble' - the HELL he isn't and doesn't!

Just make up your mind whether it's the Time Vortex, time vortex, or space-time vortex, will you?

The Masks of Makassar - what an amusing short story. Well, actually it's complete drivel (this Cornell person must NEVER be allowed to write for the new series! Oh, wait...) but the pictures are on the wrong pages, amusingly giving the game away about, say, the Doctor's capture BEFORE it happens.

Don't like the Shearman story either. Mummy cooks and cries a lot, daddy does the work, and there's a cop-out ending.

What I Did On My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow is, on the other hand, brilliant. Someone should...oh.

The Brilliant Book of Doctor Who 2012:

'The Time Lords...travelled in fantastic craft called TARDISes. They spent so long in the Time Vortex they became nearly immortal' - sorry, the VORTEX was responsible? Not, say, Rassilon's genetic engineering?

'When travelling through the time vortex Amy realised she was pregnant' - not NECESSARILY when the TARDIS was in flight, surely?

'And then she forgot all about being pregnant' - did she? Or did she just assume it had been a mistake?

River is 'a mysterious woman who claimed to know him in his future' - she didn't just CLAIM that, she PROVED it.

'No one wants to tune in and see some guy moaning about saving the world. "Oh, everything's so bad, and I'm so dark, and I've got this great weight on my shoulders."' - Oh dear. Has Matt actually WATCHED any McCoy/Eccy era stuff?

'Ensuring that a teacher would resign so he could take over his job' - HER job, actually.

Why on Earth would the Doctor have dumped Amy and Rory on a honeymoon trip with Wyatt Earp? Crossing his own timeline and risking them meeting Hartnell and suchlike...

'It always gives the show a bit of spice if there's someone in it the Doctor doesn't like' - hey! The Doc didn't like the SOUND of Nixon but I think he liked him when they were working together.

'The questions proliferate in the early part of the show, but they don't stay enigmas, they're answered - they are promises we don't break' - SERIOUSLY? See Monsters: The Silence for PLENTY of questions that have TOTALLY FAILED to be answered.

'I'd given them each a Cryostasis podlet which simulates death when swallowed' - alright, that solves the problem of why no FBI man noticed Amy and Rory BREATHING and suchlike after getting shot. I certainly didn't SEE 'em swallowing any pills though...

River thinks the Silence might have caused the American Civil War as a form of population control. Come off it. If only the Silence had been interested in population control they'd've done a MUCH better job...(Mind you, population has TOTALLY blown up since the Doctor had 'em all massacred...)

Ben and Polly are 'some teenagers I'd first met in a disco' - TEENAGERS?

I don't want to be too hard on James Goss - he HAS written the occasional good novel or audio, after all - but WHAT A MORON. How DARE he have the Doctor sneering away at humanity for only getting to the Moon ('Really, it's a bit rubbish. Fifty years of space travel and that's as far as you've got') and not to 'that big red Mars-shaped thing in the sky' when WE GOT TO MARS. Which bit of Ambassadors of Death is he totally failing to remember?? (Well, ALL of it. Obviously.)

Martha Jones isn't exactly 'Definitely the first woman ever to travel to the moon in a hospital' - there were plenty of OTHER women around at the time.

'You just went to war with the first bunch you met - the Draconians' - come off it, they CAN'T have been the FIRST aliens we met - they were half-way across the galaxy.

So Avery 'put [Joseph Longfoot] ashore to stand guard over some significant portion of his treasure' - nice attempt to stop Black Spot and Smugglers contradicting each other, but I'm sure it doesn't WORK...

Nine drafts. Nine drafts. For THE CURSE OF THE BLACK SPOT, the story that more than any other feels like a first draft. (And an unbelievably bad first draft by a five-year-old moron at that.) Almost as unbelievable as this most unbelievable of facts is that Amy was originally supposed to be the one who got drowned, but they decide Amy is getting 'almost killed' too many times so...ha ha ha!...they use Rory instead! *Starts banging head against nearest wall*

'I just felt it was part of my responsibility to develop a strong story strand for [Rory]' - yeah, cos abandoning his wife and the Doctor to go running after some lump of biomass for no readily apparent reason was TOTALLY what I'd call a strong story strand.

'Brother Smith...is sung of still as the saviour of this holy place' - a likely story. He was the one who made 'em shut down their main source of income.

For what it's worth, this is definite that the Cybermen of this season are Mondasian. Sadly it fails to explain their remarkable similarity to that Cybus lot.

The Doctor told Madame Vastra that her race was dead?! What a lying git!

'River has lost her ability to regenerate - which explains why she can't escape her fate at the end of Forest of the Dead' - NO IT DOESN'T! FotD CLEARLY EXPLAINS that no Time Lord would survive this brains-blowing-out process for long enough to regenerate.

River's 'always seemed unusually close with [Amy and Rory]' - seriously? Rory's first meeting with his daughter involved her looking him over and rather dismissively announcing 'The Plastic Centurion. I dated a Nestene Duplicate once. Had swappable heads. Kept things fresh...'

The Teselecta User Guide actually offers information about which lawyers to use to sue the Teselecta for workplace-related injuries?

*Sigh* There was a cut scene in Almost People where the TARDIS provided the Doctor with a new sonic. I KNEW it!

The Handroids can see through walls? How the hell does Amy escape them all those decades!

Williams is NOT Amy's 'proper married name'. POND is her proper married name, you sexist git.

No need to tell us about Horns of Nimon TWICE.

'The Doctor gently nudged [Craig} and Sophie together' - GENTLY NUDGED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doctor claims to have a 2.2 in cosmic science? I thought Romana said he got 51% - surely a Third?

Val is totally in denial about her nephew being gay? WHY? She took one look at Craig WITH A BABY and decided HE was gay!

'If they so much as hold hands, all the damage would be undone' - not exactly. They need to touch so they'll go back to the beach and THEN River has to shoot the hell out of the Doctor. Teselecta. Whatever.

'[River] loves her mum and dad, and her fella, but the rest of the universe can go hang' - she really loves Amy and Rory? That's sweet. Also, as I may have mentioned, not really seen on-screen.

Thank the gods, no ghastly short stories this year.

There's gonna be no Brilliant Book of Doctor Who this year! My life is RUINED! Why didn't anyone think of THIS before they decided it would be a great idea to shove a mutilated half-season on in the autumn??

Well, who'd've thought it. Comics CAN be fun after all:

http://gallifreybase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=142852

Of those only the Davison pics are from a comic. The rest were illustrations from text stories in the annuals.

Excuses, excuses...OK, I'll move it into the much-neglected Annuals section...

TARDIS Eruditorum: 'And so [the Annuals] did a tremendous amount of work filling in the possibility of a larger context for the series. By giving us a glimpse of what existed beyond the episodes, the episodes became better.' - Actually I think the series itself was great at hinting at unseen adventures, and we didn't NEED any godawful annuals to DESECRATE our Who.

'The Doctor is implored by a dying civilization that has nearly destroyed itself with genetic engineering to take 100 test tube babies...to safety. When the embryos die in transit, the Doctor writes it off with a shrug and a comment about how it served them right for...making things like test tube babies in the first place' - WOW.

'Canon is the menu of things you can reference. And so the Dalek annuals, with their gleaming space marauders of Daleks, are canon because it's screamingly obvious that's where Russell T Davies got his images of Daleks. Because the alternative...is to argue that...the Virgin New Adventures aren't canon' - I have NO PROBLEM with stating that the Virgin New Adventures aren't canon. (Even though I have had the unpleasant experience of reading about 58 or 59 of the buggers.) And that the Annuals AREN'T CANON. Even if, amidst the TOTAL DROSS that is EVERY Annual, RTG found a grain of truth...

2013 Annual

The Zentrabot Invasion:
First story.
A comic strip story.
A pretty good story set during a Christmastime with the titular Zentrabots being quite menacing.
The kids that stood in as companions to the Doctor worked well here

Gods, I thought kids-as-Companions went out with John and Gillian...

The Official Doctor Who Annual 2013:

A pretty good story set during a Christmastime with the titular Zentrabots being quite menacing.

'Pretty good' in what sense? It was obviously written for four-year-olds (I'd say BY four-year-olds only THEY'D probably have more imagination). The Doctor leaves the alien ship and army intact and hanging over Earth. Oh, and then he returns, quote, a 'hundred-odd thousand kids' to their individual correct place n'times. As if Sexy would EVER bother to do THAT.

Non-comic-y (but still dire) bits of annual:

Dorium Maldover is not exactly the Doctor's 'old friend'.

In what way did Avery prevent Madame Kovarian's escape? Didn't she...y'know...ESCAPE?

'At some point in his short twelve year life, Strax had dishonoured his fellow Sontarans. As punishment, he was ordered to nurse the weak and sick - the greatset punishment a Sontaran could be expected to endure. Also indebted to the Doctor, Strax sadly lost his life...' - why does this seem to think THE SONTARANS rather than THE DOCTOR decreed that particular sick punishment? I know Strax didn't spell it out but MY GOD that SNEER on his face said it all...(I'm not blaming 'em for thinking Strax is dead. It's the sort of idiotic mistake ANYONE could make.)

'At first, the Doctor thought that [the Minotaur] was feeding on the fears of those trapped inside the hotel. Sadly, it wasn't until people started dying that he realised the beast was actually feeding on their faith' - people started dying long before the Doctor ARRIVED, never mind made his false diagnosis.

'[Gibbis's] race loved to be conquered and oppressed' - TALK about a FUNDAMENTAL MISREADING of one of the greatest characters EVER. Gibbis's lot may or may not have evolved an appreciation of being conquered, but basically they were all about SURVIVAL not masochism.

The Crossword is rather unfortunate. Well, you'd THINK 'The number of bodies the Doctor has had so far' would be a safe bet, but you'd be sadly mistaken. Less forgivable is 'The name Amy and Rory gave their baby' - Rory SO didn't get a vote.

'At last, Cyril came to a tall building which wasn't really a building at all. It was actually a bunch of intelligent trees that had somehow disguised themselves in the shape of a stone tower' - er...WAS it? I can't remember. I just know that THIS is making whatever-happened-in-Doctor-Widow-and-Wardrobe sound EVEN STUPIDER than it actually WAS. Which is quite some achievement.

In what way did Avery prevent Madame Kovarian's escape? Didn't she...y'know...ESCAPE?

He prevents her initial flight, but later the Doctor lets her go anyway, so technically she doesn't escape at all.

Of course, the initial attempt was part of her plan within a plan anyway, so she wasn't really trying to escape at all. Or something.

The Doctor just...LET HER GO?

What a cretin.

At some point in his short twelve year life, Strax had dishonoured his fellow Sontarans. As punishment, he was ordered to nurse the weak and sick - the greatset punishment a Sontaran could be expected to endure

Ah, but he made up for that by being the character we all love. Strax steals every scene he's in

He has nothing to 'make up for'. Though I still want to know HOW he dishonoured the Sontarans. It certainly wasn't through cowardice. Or being too nice to people.

It might just be that he survived a battle the Sontarans lost. Except that doesn't explain his relationship with the Doctor.

That Last Sontaran in SJA: The Last Sontaran also survived a battle the Sontarans lost, but HIS reaction was to wipe out the humiliation by blowing up Earth, not by becoming a NURSE.

DWM (in 1994) attempts to give us an interesting article on the Annuals (of all things) but leaves me feeling vaguely short-changed. Why was there no annual in 1971? Why did they end in 1985? ('I don't know' - thank you, very helpful.) But there's some great stuff from their ART DIRECTOR: 'They make you blanch when you see them, to think you'd been involved in them...they were so crude...done on that horrible wood-cut paper that bulked the thing up to such an extent, like working on stawboard or something. And the higher the prices got, the less pages they had in them...' - I know the feeling. I too blanch when I see them, and my only crime is to buy 'em second-hand due to my fanatical completism gene.

Why did they end in 1985, because the popularity of Doctor Who was in free fall by then.

Doctor Who's popularity was in freefall in 1969 but they still put out an annual. Marvel revived them in 1991, when no one but fans would have bought them, and got five years worth of books out of them. And, as a counter example, they were publishing a Starlord Annual over three years after the original comic was cancelled.

Starlord??

The Official 50th Anniversary Annual:

It doesn't have a date on it. Obviously. Since Annuals always lie about the date, the PREVIOUS (2012) Annual said '2013' so this would have to say 2104 whilst simultaneously claiming to be commemorating the glorious fiftieth anniversary of a show that started in 1963. Ha! I KNEW their mendacity would catch up with them EVENTUALLY!

'He's also one of the bravest and cleverest men you are ever likely to meet' - 'ONE OF'??? (Not to mention the fact that I'm NOT likely to meet him oh gods he's never gonna come for me is he.)

'And he never walks away from danger' - he does RUN away from danger quite a lot, though...

'The Doctor has regenerated ten times, meaning he's had eleven different bodies' - haven't these people seen Name of the Doctor...?

('To save the Doctor and the universe from damage caused by the Great Intelligence at Trenzalore, Clara stepped into a time rift...' - OK, so they HAVE seen Name of the Doctor. (Give or take their odd definition of 'time rift'.) Which means they have NO EXCUSE.)

'Cutting myself off from the universe for a bit' - it wasn't 'for a bit', it was SUPPOSED to be PERMANENT SULKING - sorry, RETIREMENT.

'I've looked up Vastra and Strax' - why doesn't Jenny count? Are you being classist or speciest or something?

'The Doctor could fix [the chameleon circuit], but he likes the way it looks!' - of course he adores the way SHE looks, but I wouldn't hold my breath on his abilities vis-à-vis fixing chameleon circuits or, indeed, anything.

I'm not sure all of the '50 Amazing Facts About the Doctor!' are actually...amazing. ('The Doctor can't always control the TARDIS', for instance. Well, maybe someone who's grown up with CAPALDI would fall around in amazement...'When he was exiled on Earth, he had an old yellow car called Bessie!' - well, maybe in a few decades when we're treating ALL car-drivers as environmental terrorists...)

'He calls himself the Doctor, but has never revealed why!' - didn't he say that he chose it as a promise? As the Master sneered, 'the man who makes things better'?

'He once took a bike from Henry the Ninth, while Henry was trapped under a piano' - where the hell did THIS come from?!

'He never just walks away from difficult situations, he stays to sort things out' - haven't these guys MET the First Doctor? Hell, even the ELEVENTH is quite prepared to walk away from HIS WIFE the moment SHE becomes a 'difficult situation'...

'He likes to shout "Geronimo!" before doing something dangerous!' - actually approximately twelve-thirteenths of him...DON'T.

'He's also got a degree in making cheese!' - sadly one of the AMAZING FACTS! about Our Hero that seems to have gone whoosh over the authors' heads is that...THE DOCTOR LIES.

'He once got engaged to Marilyn Monroe' - unfortunately I suspect the word you're looking for is not so much ENGAGED but MARRIED.

It's quite extraordinary how Annual comics manage to be EVEN WORSE than ALL OTHER comics. I'd've sworn this was physically impossible, but no, here we have a story about how a couple of modern kids bringing a mobile phone to the wrong era brings down evil shadow-monsters to feed. Just in case any particularly dense readers failed to clock that every New Who Companion spends half her life on her mobile phone, the Doctor helpfully tells Clara to leave hers in the TARDIS just in case. *Bangs head against nearest wall*

How come every Companion from Romana II onwards gets a picture whereas most of the previous ones just get a namecheck? (I'm NOT gonna get into the question of whether Katarina/Sara/Kamelion/Adam/Wilf count as Companions while JACKIE DOESN'T, I'm just...NOT.) And this seems to have got the concept of Companion muddled up with friend - 'The Doctor has had many friends along the way. Here they all are...'

'The Doctor and Clara had the best adventures together' - no they didn't. And what's with the 'had'?

'Thank you for your help' - Ryan didn't GIVE the Doctor any help. He just...stood on a tube platform watching a magic time-bird fly into the TARDIS and, er, that's it. (Mustn't complain. At least wee only get ONE rubbish short story these days, not an entire Annual's-worth.)

OK, does EVERY INDIVIDUAL missing/differently-coloured Dalek bump count towards the 50 spot-the-differences? (And did they HAVE to amputate Amy's hand?)

I don't get the boardgame. Do you have to roll the exact number to land on Number 50, or not?

Speaking of Annuals, WHERE THE HELL IS MY BRILLIANT BOOK OF DOCTOR WHO?? Gimme gimme! It was the BEST off-screen thing about Who (let's face it, it beat some ON-screen things involving magic forests too) and I NEED IT!

Terry Nation's Dalek Annual 1979:

('Authorised edition as seen on BBC TV' - don't remember seeing any of THIS on BBC TV...)

Actually - compared to the insult-to-human-intelligence that is the MODERN Annual - it's almost...OK. The brain-twisters are SERIOUSLY difficult, I've read a LOT worse short stories and comics in my time, and I naturally thoroughly enjoy the nightmarish dystopia that is our Dalek-ridden future...though where are a) the women? b) the Tarrants? and c) THE DOCTOR?

'Picture Stories' – look, you might as well 'fess up. THEY'RE COMICS.

'Less than 100 per cent success means an applicant will not be considered for further training' - they'd never dare set the bar so high in a modern test. It would be considered child abuse or something.

It has to be said, some of the Anatomy of a Dalek 'facts' seem a little dubious (such as 'the Atractavon, a magnet so powerful that it enables Daleks to travel smoothly up walls' and 'the Dalek Fenders, brought in after Daleks kept bumping into each other'), but the 'Noise Telepathy' unit that 'amplifies the Dalek's thoughts into sound patterns acceptable to the listener's brain' would explain a LOT. I've always wondered how they organised their slave labour on various planets before the Doctor arrived to scupper their fiendish plans...

'The laws of mathematics are constant almost everywhere in the universe' - ooh! Where AREN'T they constant?

I've heard of 'putting people to the sword' (especially in King's Demons). Never heard of putting people (or in this case planets) 'to slavery', though.

'Because he is an idealist, he cannot tell a lie' - I find THAT hard to believe. Especially of the leader of the Dalek-fighting 'Extremists' (well, they certainly weren't being euphemistic about their NAME)...

'Seven's shot hit the Dalek square on the one vulnerable spot at the front of its casing' - WHAT one vulnerable spot!

'He picked up one of the Daleks, dug his fingers through its casing and wrenched. He pulled, he twisted and he tore, and then he dropped the mangled, lifeless hulk to the floor' - er...you DO know there's a green bubbling lump of hate inside there, right?

'The data Igo had gathered left him with no alternative but to destroy the planet. No man could make such a decision...but Igo was a robot' - ever heard of the OSTERHAGEN KEY, Sunshine? (Or these things called...what was it, again...oh yeah...WOMEN?)

All that 'Claimed/Admitted' stuff in the Battle Statistics puzzle is VERY CONFUSING and TOTALLY to blame for the fact I dismally failed to complete said puzzle.

Since when have Daleks said 'very good' or 'man the defences' to each other?

Why must anti-Dalek agents 'be familiar with the changing landscape of Skaro'? It's not like they're WINNING this war and about to take the battle to the Daleks' homeworld.

Still, that's as nothing in comparison with the fact 'a knowledge of Dalek terms is necessary for any ADF agent hoping to win the Daleks' confidence when posing as a traitor.' Cos if there's ONE THING a traitor-to-humanity always knows, it's that a brindigulum is a meeting between four or more Daleks, a decarain is an amazing, seven-month-long downpour, elfien is material wealth, any word prefaced by the letter J is an insult, kavay is to drink, rels are a measure of hydro-electricity, and zygquivilly means farewell. (OK, that's more than one thing. I just couldn't help myself.)

There's a REALLY strong anti-consumerist message about 'the stupidity of those who would covet "precious" metals'. (NB: I'm not saying going bling-hunting on Skaro isn't pretty thick...)

'The markings on the cloth are crude, a faded mixture of dirt and vegetable dye' - yet (like its owner) the picture survives four days of immersion in the sea...?

'How much do you know about our attempts to mutate Earth's finest brains into savage psychopaths?' - well they know a lot NOW!

Isn't Seven a ROBOT? Slightly takes the tension out of the Daleks' attempt to mutate his brain.

Omigods - A WOMAN! TWO women! Fighting Daleks and everything! I was beginning to think it was all 'lab boys' and 'wonder boys' and 'keep at 'em boys' and suchlike...

The attempt to end the final story on the usual 'Oh ••••, humanity is doomed' note is slightly ruined by the fact Shaw can easily blow the professor's brains out if the Daleks reach them before 'our men' do.

'The laws of mathematics are constant almost everywhere in the universe' - ooh! Where AREN'T they constant?

Nowhere I have ever heard of.

'The markings on the cloth are crude, a faded mixture of dirt and vegetable dye' - yet (like its owner) the picture survives four days of immersion in the sea...?

You must do laundry. You know some dirt and vegetal stains are REALLY hard to get out, some recognizable remnant could easily survive 4 days of immersion in cold sea water. How the OWNER survived that long is another matter altogether.

Isn't Seven a ROBOT? Slightly takes the tension out of the Daleks' attempt to mutate his brain.

Well, the process could still be harmful to a robot brain.

You know some dirt and vegetal stains are REALLY hard to get out, some recognizable remnant could easily survive 4 days of immersion in cold sea water. How the OWNER survived that long is another matter altogether.

Yeah, if only the picture hadn't been so neat and crystal clear and nicely coloured in by the werewolf-savage-creature I might have concentrated more on how HE survived four days in the ocean...

Well, the process could still be harmful to a robot brain.

Though to be honest, who'd CARE?

Doctor Who: The Official Annual 2015:

'Bits of the Doctor's TARDIS are scattered throughout this book' - wasn't the universe destroyed the last time the TARDIS went to pieces...? You should be more careful.

Dunno why Hurt gets Name of the Doctor as his 'first regular appearance' when the other Docs don't get their last-minute debuts labelled as such.

Dunno if NINE is the Doctor whose defining characteristic is fun, frankly.

'Although he called himself the Eleventh Doctor, this Doctor was actually the twelfth incarnation of the Time Lord' - er, thirteenth actually.

Love the 'Where's the Doctor?' page. Aside from the fact Daleks and humans are mingling happily. And the Ninth Doctor appears to be ginger.

'Long before Handles, the Doctor had another robot friend - this one looked like a dog...' - Interesting perspective on things. I suspect even people who've just seen Time of the Doctor and who've never seen any of the Tom Baker era/SJA will know more about the legendary K9 than the poignant-but-eminently-disposable Handles.

Ah, a comic in which Clara's captured followed by a coded Cyberman message announcing that Clara's been captured. Not pushing the Girl Power message this issue, then.

You see, a bloody ANNUAL can mention that Jenny is Vastra's 'wife and maid'. So why do all Justin Richards NOVELS about 'em strenuously avoid the 'w' word?

Why are you explaining who River Song is like we've never met her, but just assuming we know who Amy and Rory are?

What a ghastly short story. The wolves take over London post-Dalek Invasion of Earth? Where do the candles come from? The TARDIS just miraculously materialises around the Doctor thanks to some brat she's been 'looking after'?

What's with the Kate Lethbridge-Stewart photo with the 'This is to secret UNIT information' speech bubble on the Zygons page? Now we've READ said information the nutter'll probably NUKE us.

'They have a massive pet called a Skarasen, which people mistake for the Loch Ness Monster' - it IS the Loch Ness Monster you morons!

'They come from the planet Zygor which was destroyed in the Time War' - since when!

'He was killed during a battle at Demon's Run. Madame Vastra and Jenny then brought him back to life' - he only fainted!

Comic: So...er...there are robot guardians that just turn up and sentence anyone invading planets to a thousand years' hard labour since WHEN!

'In the year 2014, humans still haven't visited Mars' - excuse me! Ambassadors of Death, you philistines!

'Officially, people from Earth aren't allowed to go there, although some of the Doctor's Earth friends have ended up there during emergencies' - I'd hardly say that Andred wanting a shag is an emergency.

'What is the only remaining human part of a Cyberman? A The hands B The brain C The legs is quite a mean question for anyone who's seen Tenth Planet (never mind the skeletons in Dark Water).

'Teaching English at Coal Hill School is fun, Everyone has been really good to me' - what, aside from Courtney wiping the floor with you in that Deep Breath flashback, you mean?

'He turned up at my flat without any clothes on! My poor gran!' - come off it. Your gran was ogling the Doctor in a highly delighted manner.

'I always knew it could happen - because we'd talked about it before' - and not because you'd rifled through his entire timestream or anything?

Um, I don't think Vastra and Strax are your MATES, Clara. Allies, yes. But FRIENDS...?

The Dr Who Annual (1966):

The constant mentions of 'Dr Who' and 'Tardis' are REALLY getting on my nerves.

The Cloud Exiles:

'The air was warm and fragrant, full of the gentle sounds of bees and birds' - what exactly are you implying, here? Aren't bees and birds supposed to be some sort of euphemism for sex?

'This was the peace and beauty that only Earth - among all the other wonderful planets he had visited - could offer' - yeah, RIGHT.

It's a SCANNER not a 'sight-screen'!

'The grey nothingness of the trans-dimensional flux' - if you mean the Vortex just SAY the Vortex!

'This planet belonged to us, the Ethereals' - you called yourselves ethereal BEFORE the robot attempt to vaporise you turned you ethereal? You were really ASKING for it, weren't you.

'With the help of his super ring, he should be able to free himself within a few seconds' - OH to be in a position to sneer at the Annuals for claiming Hartnell had a magic ring...

'Obviously I can't leave this planet with robots ruling it...Good gracious me! Where would we be if we allowed robots to take over everything? Eh?' - that's RACISM. (Or, um, SOMETHING.)

'You are indeed our saviour - and now you must be our ruler' - why doesn't the Doctor get greeted with this sort of thing more often?

'He did not claim to be a particularly brave man, but he believed implicitly that Fate had a hand in directing the strange travels of his Tardis' - since WHEN!

How exactly were the Ethereals planning on perpetuating their species once they'd all been downloaded into copies of the Doctor's body?

A robot city has robot police?

'Nalog, the Chief of the Robots, is able to...keep the controls of his master-panel set to "Rebellion"' - you made your robots with a REBELLION setting?!

The Sons of Grekk:

'Take the spy to the Pit' - without interrogating him about the whereabouts of his supposed bomb FIRST?!

'Dr Who walked on, thankful that he had locked the door of Tardis with his electronic key. Whatever the Sons of Grekk or their Machanislaves tried to do to Tardis, they could not harm the marvellous craft' - they could always remove the lock like the Sensorites did, presumably?

'Dr Who was encircled by grateful Insects; his back was slapped by jointed legs and scaly feet, and his white hair caressed by antennae' - bless! Jackson Lake should have seen THIS!

So one second the Machanislaves are shooting at the Doctor, the next he dives behind a pillar and they hurry on their way??

'The robots were going to push Tardis out of the window!' - yeah? So? She's indestructible even in THOSE days, The Romans proved THAT. No need for the Doc ro race madly towards them, tear the key from his neck, crouch, leap, grap the ledge at the bottom of the police-box, swing there, haul himself up, tumble into Tardis, slide across the floor, fetch up with a sickening thud against the central control-panel, set the controls with frantic haste, wait for the awful crash, etc etc...

Terror on Tiro:

'He was in a dreadful fix! There was nothing he could use to replace the liquid Magnatite in repairing the valve. And unless he could repair it he might be destined to live out the remainder of his life on Tiro. Suddenly relief flowed through his whole body, like a warming drink. "But of course!" he exclaimed. "Argon will be able to help me!"' - oh-kay. You didn't think LIVES instead of life? You didn't think you could just FIND SOME MAGNATITE YOURSELF? You didn't think to BEFRIEND ANY NATIVES before remembering that you were ALREADY jolly good chums?

'A glance sky-ward told him that of the twelve orbiting stars which provided Tiro with its constant glaring daylight...' - er...it's PLANETS wot orbit stars and not vice-versa, I do believe. Also, with TWELVE of the buggers surely Tiro will be fried to a crisp? And how would twelve stars cope in such close vicinity anyway?

'"My goodness!" marvelled Dr Who. "I had forgotten how huge these insects are on Tiro. They are every bit as big and fearsome as the Zarbi on Vortis!"' - well, thank heavens we got THAT cleared up or the Fan Debate might rage to this day...

The Doctor's blood 'ran cold with fear' cos he heard a SCREAM?

Of all the natives on all this world, the Doc just happens to bump into his old friend?

'Klarimo, eh? Amazing! But, yes, I see now, the re-arrangement of his molecules would produce just such a grotesque appearance as that' - surely the rearrangement of anyone's molecules could result in PRACTICALLY ANYTHING?

'It was agreed with the Galactic Arbitrators, and with the Outerfringe Council, that Klarimo should be withdrawn' - blimey, how many organisations did the Doc NEED to help him (fail to) solve Tiro's problems, last time? (And...Galactic Arbitrators? Since WHEN!)

'My dear friend. Is there anything we can do to repay you for solving our problem like this?' - ah yes, again we have the sort of attitude one ALMOST NEVER gets on-screen. Dunno why the Doctor thinks a 'few drops' of Magnatite are enough to keep Sexy going indefinitely, though. Shouldn't he take this chance to stock up?

To be continued...

Aren't bees and birds supposed to be some sort of euphemism for sex?

In the immortal words of Bart Simpson, "The sun is out. Birds are singing. Bees are trying to have sex with them... as is my understanding..."

(I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.)

A glance sky-ward told him that of the twelve orbiting stars which provided Tiro with its constant glaring daylight...' - er...it's PLANETS wot orbit stars and not vice-versa, I do believe.

Stars can orbit each other no problem. In fact, most stars belong to systems containing more than one.

Also, with TWELVE of the buggers surely Tiro will be fried to a crisp?

The number and brightess of stars is not the only relevant factor. Distance also plays a big part. For instance, if our sun suddenly became a hundred times brighter, Earth would fry but Saturn would find itself in a pleasantly warm location. Tiro's orbit only needs to be of the appropriate size to get the right amount of heat from its many suns.

And how would twelve stars cope in such close vicinity anyway?

Twelve stars orbiting in close proximity would be a problem though. Such a system would be quite unstable and would quickly fall apart, astronomically speaking, unless the orbits were configured in very unlikely patterns.

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

*Nods approvingly*

Once it's been made clear that they're every bit as big and fearsome as the Zarbi on Vortis!, of course.

In fact, most stars belong to systems containing more than one.

Blimey, I assumed that was RARE. Just Aridius and (somewhat to my surprise) Gallifrey...

Such a system would be quite unstable and would quickly fall apart, astronomically speaking, unless the orbits were configured in very unlikely patterns.

It's the Whoniverse. The suns were probably laid by dancing dodos.

Mission for Duh:

Ah, the one and only comic gives us such priceless gems as 'Goodbye! And thank you for solving our problem!' 'You are all friends now. That is my reward! Goodbye!'

The Devil-Birds of Corbo:

'What looked like a police telephone box, big enough to hold two or at the most three standing people, contained, in fact, a room about twenty feet in height and with the breadth and width of a restaurant' - aren't we forgetting (this being Old Who) that there are OTHER ROOMS!

'"Amazing! Simply amazing!" whispered Dr Who. He learned on the control panel, and his hand trembled with excitement as he stared at the screen' - where there are...SOME REALLY BIG CLIFFS!!!!

'Already the deadly zeroid grip of night was relaxing under the strident rays' - the WHAT grip of night?

'But of the winged menaces themselves there was no sign. It occurred to Dr Who that this might indicate that they were night birds. But he knew he could take no chances' - but he IS taking chances! Wandering around when the evil giant killer-birds could get him anytime!

'A few minutes passed, minutes of grey obscurity during which unconsciousness pulled a merciful blanket across his overwrought mind' - ah yes, that hysterical fainting Doctor...

'"Why - you're children! Earth children!" he exclaimed incredulously' - cos no other planet produces rug-rats like ours?

'The decision of the Council of Earth and Mars to send out an inter-galactic mission' - shouldn't this sweet little two-bit alliance try exploring its OWN galaxy first? Before sending out (all-male!) teams quite so far?

'The devil-birds were robots! So staggering was the revelation that Dr Who failed to notice a new scene unfolding' - wow, that's what I CALL a staggering revelation! Oh, wait...

The Playthings of Fo:

'We shall return to the ship and fit on contra-gravity suits' - BLIMEY the TARDIS was well-stocked in those days...

'Who cares what language it is? The important thing is we can understand it - thanks to the automatic mental adjuster in your Tardis' - OK, it's a little on the info-dumpy side but it's more than the TV series bothered to give us till, what, 1976...?

'Dr Who ran to his store-room. He came back with a small black box under his arm. "I fancy this should take care of Fo!" he told the others' - when I said well-stocked TARDIS I didn't know the half of it, did I. He's got a box which can kill giant hairy Cyclops monsters (but no one else) when you take the lid off.

'Ff'ni ran to him, gobbling his gratitude. The doctor smiled wearily and patted his shoulder. "All right my friend. No need to thank me."' - yeah, you're not the only one getting sick of this relentless gratitude.

Justice of the Galacians:

'On his feet he had strapped his Zero Boots, a cunning combination of snow-shoes, crampons and skis, which he had invented for just such inhospitable planets as this' - ah yes, like a Boy Scout the Doctor's motto truly is 'Be Prepared!' He may not have any spare mercury (or Magnatite. Or Zeiton-7). But APART from that...

'His endless wanderings through Time and Space had taken him into so many strange places in the universe that his origins had long since been forgotten' - say WHAT!

'How can we repay you for this great service?' - er, you've already rescued him from the great tyrant Rraprro, haven't you?!

Escape from Planet X (board game):

What the hell d'you MEAN, 'start with a six'?! What on Earth is the point of having 'fuse blows. Miss 2 turns' on number 4 if you have to sit around throwing the dice till you get a six?

Ten Fathom Pirates:

There's a guard-rail on the console in the Hartnell era?

'Once more Dr Who was the target for every weapon in the room. The situation was probably the most delicate in his whole fantastic career' - yeah, RIGHT.

'Dr Who could not repress a cheer. "Everything is all right again!" he smiled' - though not for the loads of innocent civilians who died in agony when that building exploded, presumably.

All pretty ghastly, of course, but in a considerably more entertaining way than I was expecting.

He's got a box which can kill giant hairy Cyclops monsters (but no one else) when you take the lid off.

That's and oddly specific weapon.

There's a guard-rail on the console in the Hartnell era?

Not that I remember.


Btw, reading him being called "Dr Who" all the time would drive me insane.

Weirdly enough, I almost got used to it and the rare occasions he was referred to as 'doctor' jarred even more. Of course, this probably wouldn't have been the case if 'doctor' hadn't been so...lower-case.

Sounds like a case of Critical Research Failure here.

The character is not named "Dr. Who", he's called "The Doctor".

Except in the credits for the first 18 years.

And in 'The War Machines'.

And 'The Highlanders'.

And 'The Daemons' (if you squint).

What the hell happened in The Daemons?!

He's referred to as "the Great Wizard Qui-Quae-Quod". So it's a bit of a shame that the mob doesn't respond by muttering "Who? Who? Who?"

Exactly. It was the Target novelisations that firmed "the Doctor" rather than "Doctor Who" as the character's name.

Well it's more a case that the character was never referred to as "Doctor Who" on screen (except as a joke or when a new production took over and messed up) but that he'd invariably be referred to as "Doctor Who" in general public discussion until fandom began to get rigid and uptight about these things in the JN-T era. Even the Targets would typically call him "Doctor Who" at least once, particularly in the early days. He's "Doctor Who" all the way through 'Doctor Who and the Zarbi', for example.

So to claim that an annual published in 1966 is guilty of "critical research failure" is a peculiar and ahistorical category error.

Sorry about that. For some reason I saw "1986" instead of "1966"!

The Doctor Who Storybook 2007:

From the entertainment point of view it's more successful than most Who short story collections. From the moral point of view, not so much. The messages seem to entail: women are wimps who need a man to rescue them, cats are evil, death is far worse than eternal torment, and hey, just ROAST those alien invaders.

What does 'Don't fancy yours much, dear reader' mean, exactly? It looks to me as if THE DOCTOR is accusing all his readers of being pug-ugly but obviously I must be mistaken, he'd never give an entire generation body issues like that.

Cuckoo-Spit:

The Doctor burns all the alien puppies alive? Lovely. Well done.

The Cat Came Back:

'Brave people. Spreading humanity's innovations through the universe' - oh, absolutely, we TOTALLY colonise the universe to spread innovations and not sex or genocide or anything...

'The first humans to travel through hyperspace, they're out further than any human's been before. Apart from you, obviously' - right, cos it's not like the Doctor's ever given any OTHER human a lift in the TARDIS...

So they shot the first CAT into hyperspace ninety years ago, but the HUMANS have only just got up the guts to follow darling Mitzi?

Hmm. Didn't we HAVE all this sort of stuff in Sixth Doctor audio 1963: The Space Race? Still, I suppose this got there first...

Once Upon a Time:

'The children of our village started to vanish. At first it was only a few; a boy here, a girl there - maybe lost to wolves, or bears, or outlaws in the mountains But after a time the adults started to notice; too many of their children were not coming home' - well, BETTER LATE THAN NEVER, it's so reassuring to think that EVENTUALLY parents might spot this sort of thing...

'By summer, half the children of the village were missing. By autumn, there were but two dozen left. By winter, only two children remained' - how exactly does this fit with 'Every day, when the music finished, there was one child less'? Either this is some alien planet with really short seasons or these villagers are breeding like Adipose.

And what about babies? Do they crawl away, or what?

So since the music started, any kid that goes towards the mountain is never seen again? And the kids think it's a brilliant idea to play a fun who'll-go-closest-to-the-mountain game? And the adults don't stop it? Or send an expedition to the mountain where it's rumoured all their children disappeared to?

'Possibly, given time, Brynn and Lissa would have come to understand the truth of the music' - how?

Ah, what a picture of domestic bliss. The boy rescues the captive maiden with love's first kiss, they marry and live happily ever after. With HER doing all the baking.

That's one modern-looking picture of a cake. I'd assumed this was a village of medieval illiterate and frankly severely inbred peasants. Mysteriously lacking any sort of higher authority to appeal to when their kids went walkabout.

Opera of Doom:

Er, fine I suppose. For a comic.

Gravestone House:

Ah, dear old Justin Richards. The drop in quality compared to most of the other Proper New Who Writer-penned stories is palpable.

Modern kids believe in witches?

They should 'probably' barricade the windows - after hearing the glass smash?

Untitled:

'An electronic voice was all too eager to give her information on who painted the picture in question, what paint he'd used, what he'd been thinking at the time...' - cos, of course, WOMEN can't paint.

'Her face was contorted in a scream, the mouth twisted unnaturally to let it out' - pity the artist wasn't up to portraying anything more than a pic of Rose with her gob open.

No One Died:

The Doctor can sign-language to Viyrans but not (Under the Lake) to humans?

Corner of the Eye:

Oh look. A Moffat short story in which...an alien has a super-evolved ability to hide.

Which means, of course, that Capaldi's sudden 'My god, what if there's an alien with a super-evolved ability to hide!' behaviour is a little...odd.

Trapping two computer-programmes-who-think-they're-human in an Alzheimer's hell is the Doctor's idea of a happy ending? (NB: this isn't a nit. TennantDoc is ALWAYS doing this sort of thing, after all.)

'The first humans to travel through hyperspace, they're out further than any human's been before. Apart from you, obviously' - right, cos it's not like the Doctor's ever given any OTHER human a lift in the TARDIS...

Are they aware of that? They may just not know about the Doctor and his companions.

'An electronic voice was all too eager to give her information on who painted the picture in question, what paint he'd used, what he'd been thinking at the time...' - cos, of course, WOMEN can't paint.

Obviously, the voice knows who painted that specific painting, and it just happened to be a man.

They may just not know about the Doctor and his companions.

It's THE DOCTOR speaking!

He must be pretending he's never travelled with anyone but Rose, the lying seducer! No wonder she's so upset in School Reunion...

(Mind you, she REALLY should have spotted Eccy's 'I've travelled with a lot of people' in Empty Child.)

Obviously, the voice knows who painted that specific painting, and it just happened to be a man.

Noooo no no no, it was describing Rose pressing LOADS of buttons under LOADS of different pictures...

All the Troughton annuals were appallingly illustrated, with stories that were clearly written by someone with no knowledge of the show and certainly no knowledge of kids. Did they really think kids would appreciate a cartoon story where the Doctor manages to deactivate a deadly robot simply by switching it off? (There was a handy button on its back.) Actually, for 'switching off' read 'metal virus' and you have Doctor Four's first story.

I doubt anyone who had anything to do with the Annual Abominations thought children would APPRECIATE this rubbish. They just kept their fingers crossed that some misguided adult would buy the things for Who-loving rug-rats and after that it would be too late...

Terry Nation's Dalek Annual 1977:

The 'Terry Nation' on the cover is a bit superfluous, surely. I mean, there's a Tarrant in the very first story...

'Every man on this base...' - why is everyone in the Anti-Dalek Force MALE? Except, bizarrely, for the 'Martian girl' who's its second-in-command? (A picture disappointingly reveals she's a human colonist rather than an Ice Warrior. Also...girl? Surely by the time you're running the galaxy's military you're a GROWN WOMAN?)

How marvellous. After getting hit by the Daleks' Doomsday Machine, you'll return to full size with no after-effects. Maybe they should consider renaming it...

The galactic commander AND his scared-of-heights second-in-command go on a suicide mission together? One that any good soldier would have been capable of performing?

'What they saw at the other side stunned them into silence. At the centre of the vast hollowed-out shaft stood the Doomsday Machine' - given that this was exactly what they were EXPECTING to see, they had a good description of it, and it's not particularly impressive going by the illustration, I'm not quite sure what the stunned silence is in aid of.

'The couple paused' - which means sitting on the floor in the middle of your escape, judging by the subsequent 'pulled Reb to her feet'.

'The ADF Chaser Rocket was gliding in to a landing' - what, it can just LAND ON SKARO SAFELY all of a sudden?

This does assume that if you're playing its games with a friend, it's a MALE friend.

Adorable! Skaro has an acid sea! A jungle! Icecanos! (OK, it also, slightly less excitingly, has rocks.) And this is AFTER a couple of people float up a shaft using hot air and a piece of plastic! I'm SNIVELLING with nostalgia.

Blimey, that must be the longest 'emergency transmission' in history. You COULD have just cut to the chase, Sunshine.

'I have studied archaeology in every corner of the Universe' - what, even though your spaceship takes months to reach each destination?

OK, all those...fantastic tricks have me completely bamboozled. Both how they work and what the hell the likes of memorising-London-phone-numbers has to do with Daleks.

How come Anti-Dalek Force members know all about candles? ZOE didn't.

Gotta love a comic blessed with (Dalek Emperor!) lines like 'I am trapped by a girder. Free me with a magnet. Emergency! A giant electric eel is about to attack me. Hurry with the magnetiser!' (And points for using electric eels long before Capaldi thought of it.)

'The mine owner was trapped with his men' - now isn't THAT bad luck. How often did mine owners go down t'pit?

Would an English village in the mid-to-late nineteenth century REALLY lose EVERY SINGLE MEMBER after a pit collapse? Sure, there wouldn't be many jobs around but it WAS a time of drastically rising population.

'Thank you. Had the Daleks recaptured me, I should have been forced to develop weapons that would give them still greater power. You have saved not only my life but perhaps the lives of millions' - why didn't you JUST TOP YOURSELF you snivelling collaborator?

I can't believe those Science Fiction Questions - encouraging people to WATCH LESSER PROGRAMMES!

'Housed at ADF headquarters is a vast and complex piece of equipment known as the "TIME-COMPUTER". If you feed into it the Date, Month and Year it can accurately determine on which day that date fell over a period of two centuries' - OH MY GOD! ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY TIME-COMPUTER! The ADF's victory over the Daleks is assured!

'For centuries, man has looked up to the stars and wondered about the creatures that inhabit those apparently tiny, glittering worlds' - is that TRUE? How long have we seriously considered the existence of aliens? And how long have we known the 'glittering worlds' were actually SUNS and therefore unlikely to be inhabited?

'The Loch Ness Monster, so long treated as a joke, has been the subject of serious scientific investigation recently, and there is much evidence, though still disputed, that the creature really does exist' - oh, REALLY?

Would an astronaut's oxygen cannister really weight a ton?

The 'Survival' test is actually a really thought-provoking one (at which I failed dismally *sadly crosses 'astronaut' off choice of future careers*) but is it true that 'a magnetic compass only works on earth'? Surely other planets have magnetic poles or cores or whatever?

Why is Part Three of the comic suddenly in black-and-white? And one of the speech-bubbles is empty.

WE'RE supposed to decode an inscription that's baffled the British Museum? •••• off.

'Here are two quizzes' - actually, you put the first one several pages previously.

'Housed at ADF headquarters is a vast and complex piece of equipment known as the "TIME-COMPUTER". If you feed into it the Date, Month and Year it can accurately determine on which day that date fell over a period of two centuries'

I can write you a small program that will do the same thing over many millions of years

'For centuries, man has looked up to the stars and wondered about the creatures that inhabit those apparently tiny, glittering worlds' - is that TRUE? How long have we seriously considered the existence of aliens?

The oldest known story involving space travel with actual aliens is A True Story, written by Lucian of Samosata in the second century AD. It tells of the adventures of a ship thrown into the sky by a powerful waterspout and visiting the empires of the Moon and the Sun and meeting many weird and exotic people.

I can write you a small program that will do the same thing over many millions of years

No need! Thanks to Terry Nation's Dalek Annual 1977 I can amaze my friends and do the calculations ALL BY MYSELF with just a pen, paper and two or three helpful charts...

The oldest known story involving space travel with actual aliens is A True Story, written by Lucian of Samosata in the second century AD.

Why didn't I know about this?! Why does Mary Shelley get the credit for inventing sci-fi!

Well, the Shelley thesis derives from Brian Aldiss's 'Billion Year Spree' (1972), which has proved very influential but not universally accepted. Like a lot of histories of sf, it's less about finding "the first" so much as identifying the point when the genre coalesces into a distinct set of concerns as opposed to the "Kafka's ancestors" ragbag of Lucian, Rabelais, Kepler, Voltaire, Casanova et al. My own feeling is that 'Frankenstein' is just a touch too early - you really need the theory of evolution in play before sf becomes possible (though Erasmus Darwin's 'Zoonomia' dates from 1794) - but its as good a starting point as any. Aldiss himself has said that it allows students to start with something readable rather than having to struggle through turgid 17th century utopias and dodgy translations of Athanasius Kircher.

WE'RE supposed to decode an inscription that's baffled the British Museum? •••• off.

Especially as the translation turns out to be something like "The Daleks' mum is bigger than your mum!"

You REMEMBER these things?! Life is SO NOT FAIR. I can barely remember the inscription and I only finished the Annual yesterday.

PLEASE tell me that at least you read it at some point AFTER 1977...

Yeah it seems that the general public still refer to the character as "Doctor Who"...although technically a question in the title of the show, in general parlance it's shorthand to refer to the specific tv character.

I do find these little wrinkles (like breaking the third wall in Feast of Steven etc) evilly amusing.

Evil is RIGHT.

Isn't it hard enough to suspend one's disbelief WITHOUT the Doctor blatantly siding with those sickos who claim he's only some sort of TELEVISION PROGRAMME?

Storybook 2008:

A Letter from the Doctor:

I just KNEW this was by RTG before I checked. Though what the hell is the Doctor doing, saying 'Here are some of our adventures that you'll never see on television' - even the existence of the info-stamps didn't seem to tip him off that we're watching...

Cats and Dogs:

'If I'm honest I've never been a fan' - like the cat wouldn't have made it PERFECTLY clear he didn't like tuna catfood BEFORE he learnt to talk. (OK it turns out the oochie is a pathological liar so the nit is why Biggles' 'owner' didn't think of this.)

Could a cat REALLY type with its tail? Well, at least it looks like a shorthair, doesn't have one of those glorious feather-duster tails...

'And a cat's mind! It's a jumble of rubbish - so un-evolved. Cat mind patterns are completely untranslatable' - bloody cheek! Also wrong as ELEVEN has never had any problem chatting to cats.

Biggles hid in the rucksack 'so that we could get past the dogs sat outside' - wouldn't they be able to SMELL him?

WOULD it take exactly the same amount of time (viz, two weeks) for a disembodied alien to learn how to use the vocal cords of a cat AND a dog? Surely the dawg variety are inferior in some way? They can't even purr!

Close to a MILLION cats and dawgs converging on this spot so fast? I know we're a nation of animal-lovers, but...

Tennant's being quite glib about 'these Daleks and the heart of the TARDIS a this frankly epic kiss' for a guy who considers that regeneration = DEATH.

'A powerful sonic blast...which was inaudible to humans but painfully audible to cats and dogs. And Time Lords for that matter. Ringing headache' - has there ever been any indication that he can hear, say, K9's dog whistle?

'You lot are renowned for being the best liars in the galaxy, after the Sisters Of Falsehood, the Deceivions from planet Fibb and Jeffrey Archer' - Jeffrey Archer isn't THAT good a liar, apparently his books are rubbish and of course EVERYONE KNEW he was perjuring himself in that first trial apart from the judge who'd gone ga-ga over his fragrant wife...

THE DOCTOR gave BIGGLES to MARY? I'm feeling that same BETRAYAL as when he DIDN'T ask that Frontier President to release those political prisoners on the Moon. Mary has a DAWG that HATES darling Biggles!

The Doctor contemplates having a normal cat 'purring inanely' (!) - 'a constant companion across all of space and time who asks for nothing ore than a bit of attention, a few square meals and somewhere warm to sleep. But then I thought - that's what humans are for' - but (especially where Tennant's concerned) they ask for a LOT more than a BIT of attention, and he does CLAIM he thinks of us as giants not insects.

That was, annoyingly, more fun than anything Tom MacRae's done on-screen.

The Body Bank:

It's 'a couple of hundred thousand years' before Martha's trip to New Earth, which is 'probably just being colonised' - but I got the impression New Earth hadn't been colonised for long at all when the Doctor and Rose (and therefore, soon afterwards, the Doctor and Martha) visited? That Earth was blown to smithereens in the year five billion and New Earth was founded as a direct result and the TARDIS landed there in *hastily checks* five billion and twenty-three and then five billion and fifty-three.

The Box Under the Tree:

Harry would feel daily disappointment that he was plain old Harry and that that his little sister wasn't really 'some sort of experimental rodent walking on its hind legs'? Surely EVERY kid regards their younger sibling as an experimental rodent walking on its hind legs?!

DO boys play hockey?

'There are millions and millions of stories out there. Trillions. But sometimes the storyteller is so good, his imagination is so powerful, that it leaves an imprint on the universe. The stories can't help but come true' - oh, puh-LEASE. My Doctor is NOT some FICTIONAL CHARACTER controlled by some LITTLE BOY.

Zombie Motel:

'Whoever said being a chamber maid was an easy way to earn some cash' - no one. Ever.

'I remember the Doctor kissing me goodbye' is hard enough to take, for a disposable five-minutes-only temporary Companion, but THAT PICTURE of it as a full-on snog *shudders*...

Sun Screen:

Um...not very good.

The Iron Circle:

Walking pylons? Ring of Steel ripped off an ANNUAL story?

Oh, what a happy ending. Smash your headmistress's window and the other kids will become friends with you!

Kiss of Life:

Well, it's considerably better than Cecilia Ahern's Who/Cinderella rip-off, but then so's gouging your own eyes out.

Deep Water:

'Martha had been expecting a ponderous industrial lift like the ones at Goodge Street station' - WHY for heaven's sake? THIS far in the future?

Martha just happens to pick Floor 22? The 'floor that doesn't want to be visited'?

Could a cat REALLY type with its tail?

Improbable, but not completely out of the realm of possibilities. Assuming it's possible at all, they WOULD need quite a lot of training though.

Biggles hid in the rucksack 'so that we could get past the dogs sat outside' - wouldn't they be able to SMELL him?

Easily.

WOULD it take exactly the same amount of time (viz, two weeks) for a disembodied alien to learn how to use the vocal cords of a cat AND a dog? Surely the dawg variety are inferior in some way? They can't even purr!

Purring involves a lot more than just the vocal chords, and is controlled its own specific region of the brain. A disembodied alien would not have to bother with it, controlling normal cat vocalizations would be enough and less confusing.

DO boys play hockey?

They do in Canada. But maybe you should specify which type of hockey and where those boys are.

Assuming it's possible at all, they WOULD need quite a lot of training though.

Nope, the darling just got the Doctor to do his typing for him due to 'incompatibility issues with paws and a qwerty keyboard' and then SUDDENLY realised that 'he could type with his tail'.

Purring involves a lot more than just the vocal chords, and is controlled its own specific region of the brain.

Brilliant.

If only WE had a specific region of the brain devoted to purring, I'm sure we'd be a MUCH less nasty species.

A disembodied alien would not have to bother with it, controlling normal cat vocalizations would be enough and less confusing.

But the fake-human-Doctor would have noticed if his darling oochie had stopped purring for two whole weeks!!

maybe you should specify which type of hockey and where those boys are.

England, of course!

God, I've just had the hideous realisation that the human who talked about his cat seeing him 'naked, or having a poo' was of course THE DOCTOR. Let's hope it was one of those false memories he's implanted and that NOTHING OF THE SORT has occurred over the last fortnight.

Doctor Who: The Official Annual 2017:

As opposed to WHAT, exactly? It's probably been a while since anyone felt moved to create an unofficial annual.

It's one thing to retroactively refer to the Master as 'she' (this is deeply supportive of transgender rights. Or something.) but to refer to UNIT in the Pertwee Era as that 'Unified' nonsense is JUST NOT ON.

'Didn't I dress up as a scarecrow and stand in a field for some reason around this time? What WAS I thinking?' - dear gods, even the OFFICIAL Annual is taking the •••• out of Mark of the Rani...

'That was one quest I wouldn't care to repeat! Have you ever spent four and a half billion years slowly chipping away at a wall of solid diamond? No, you probably haven't. Well, I wouldn't recommend it' - don't be flippant about Heaven Sent. Just...don't.

'Ooh, I got a new body that day as well. Mine was better' is Missy's interjection when the Doc is referring to his Seven-to-Eight regeneration. Well, CLEARLY your body wasn't better OR YOU WOULDN'T HAVE TRIED TO NICK THE DOCTOR'S.

'Drank dodgy potion' is an INSANE way to describe what happened to your eighth life. 'Decided to stay and die in a crashing spaceship to prove some sort of point to some stranger' would be, as Old Sixie would put it, a more apposite epithet.

'A single Dalek could destroy FIVE MILLION Cybermen' - a) no, a single Dalek CLAIMED it could destroy five million Cybermen, and b) doesn't this rather ruin the whole point of this page, which is 'Who would win in a battle between the Doctor's two biggest enemies? Choose a victor in each category below, then add up the points'...

'When Time Lords die, their minds are uploaded into a giant, living computer called the Matrix. It's so powerful that it can predict the future!' - what, like that woman the Doc bumped into on a London bus, you mean?

If Osgood is sticking classified information into her Osgood Files, she might consider encrypting them in some more efficient manner than just writing everything backwards. Just saying'.

Also, why would Zygons PREVIOUSLY needing to keep the humans they were copying alive be classified, anyway?

Elephant in the Room: my gods this is a spectacularly pointless comic. I mean, EVEN MORE spectacularly pointless than ANY DWM comic I've had the displeasure of reading.

If you've got the BAREFACED CHEEK to attempt to get River Song's life in order...DON'T blow it by having a pic of their wedding snog when it SHOULD be their FIRST, Stormcage-in-Day-of-the-Moon snog instead. Cos that REALLY messes up the space-time continuum.

On the Byzantium 'the Doctor told me our last night together would be on the planet Darillium' - NO HE BLOODY DIDN'T.

Davros: 'The Daleks have a genetic defect, one I have been unable to eliminate - mercy for me, their father' - say WHAT!!

Martha 'travelled all over the Earth, telling stories of the his [sic] bravery so nobody would forget him' - er, I don't think most of 'em had heard of him in the first place, Sunshine. Also it was so that the Archangel Network would - oh, never mind.

The Promise comic: Since when has the Doc sonicked someone's...wrist-thingy to ensure that every time they're in danger he'd know and come running?!

And since when has he shaken hands with a genocidal despot who's suddenly, for no readily apparent reason, seen the error of his ways, and promised him that 'We shall set it right. Together!'?

'The Doctor, trapped in his own confession dial, lived through the same events over and over again, only to come up against a wall of solid diamond each time. All he could do was go round again and a again for four and a half billion years' - actually, as THIS ANNUAL ITSELF STATED FOUR PAGES AGO, 'he could have left at any time if he'd 'fessed up to the Veil'.

Those quiz questions are FIENDISH. 'Clara Oswald was there when I first stole a TARDIS - true or false' - well I seriously doubt she had Clara's name OR any of her memories, so CAN you call her 'Clara Oswald'...?

'What happened to Gallifrey, my home planet? A) It was destroyed B) I hid it in a pocket universe C) It was sucked into a black hole' - isn't the answer A) AND B) and very nearly C)? I mean, it's almost clear in Day of the Doctor that they're REWRITING history, not just clearing up some ambiguities. And then there's Three Docs and Deadly Assassin, in which said planet was very nearly sucked into a black hole...probably...

'How many times did my tenth body regenerate? A) Once B) Twice C) Three times' - damned if I know, Sunshine. Isn't your tenth body Christopher Eccleston?

'Who stole some of my regeneration energy to extend their own life? A) Davros B) Missy C) Clara - um, well, you DONATED some to Davros and Missy certainly TRIED to steal ALL your regenerations when she was the Master and frankly I wouldn't put ANYTHING past Clara...

Yeah doesn't Missy remember Eric Roberts' "I must find the Doctor. This body won't last long!" or in the novelisation "this body would start to decompose like any dead human".

If Osgood is sticking classified information into her Osgood Files, she might consider encrypting them in some more efficient manner than just writing everything backwards. Just saying'.

Oh I don't know. That particular trick stomped historians for a few centuries when Da Vinci used it to write his own notes.

You're KIDDING.

I am not. Da Vinci wrote most of his notes in a 'mirror' script that nobody could read for the longest time, until someone chanced to look at it in a mirror. Nobody really knows why he did this, but he was left handed so it may simply have been a way for him to keep his notes smudge free. He may also have been dyslexic, which would have made writing in mirror script more natural to him. Some left handed dyslexic people today are known to naturally adopt this writing style.

Well, obviously I (and I suspect numerous other Doctor Who Annual readers) am considerably smarter than all of those so-called historians put together...

I am not. Da Vinci wrote most of his notes in a 'mirror' script that nobody could read for the longest time, until someone chanced to look at it in a mirror

And since this is featured in 'City of Death' we should all be au fait with it.

Storybook 2009:

Blurb: 'By complete coincidence the pair independently began investigating sinister going on at Adipose Industries' - of course it wasn't coincidence you moron, you've just ADMITTED that Donna was searching for the Doctor!

'Donna realised that travelling in the TARDIS changed people for the better' because she met MARTHA? She was appalled that Martha was a soldier thanks to the Doctor and she wasn't exactly over the moon when Martha pretty much said that 'The Doctor got all my family tortured and he'll probably do the same to yours' either...

A Letter from the Doctor: In 2009 it was probably different, but right now there are few things I need less than more Moffat timey-wimeyness...

Hello Children, Everywhere: 'The Doctor admitted to a long-running passion for the works of Beatrix Potter, which were required reading once upon a time at the Time Lord Academy' - I don't think so, Sunshine.

'Donna's eyes widened. "It's really her! It's her voice! Aunty Winnie!"' - Donna thinks that a woman born 160 years ago still being alive is more likely than the existence of a TAPE RECORDING?

Roger looks, what, about sixty in the illustrations? I.e. ONE HUNDRED YEARS younger than his aunt?

'He boggled his eyes furiously at Roger' - no insult to Tennnant but there's only ONE Doctor who can boggle his eyes...

Look, amusement park creatures running amok is the oldest story in the book...OK, technically speaking it probably isn't, but it really feels like Who has had more than its share of this sort of thing. Which is fine when they're quite good (Legends of River Song) but not when they're...not (THIS thing).

Grand Theft Planet!: 'The Doctor, for his part, had stopped announcing where and when they had arrived because it was getting embarrassing. "San Francisco," he'd shout happily, only to open the doors and discover that they were in Dagenham. In the Jurassic era' - as if the Doc would EVER stop announcing he knows exactly where they are just because of mountains of evidence to the contrary...

'Off-worlders, my dear Doulg, trying to interfere. I thought they'd be safer up here and away from the people. They could start a panic' - I'm sorry, which bit of JUST EXECUTE THEM was too subtle for you?

'It was a regrettable mistake. We needed to set up Geocorp to explain what happened' - but you set up Geocorp the day BEFORE you made that regrettable mistake that you didn't foresee!

'We need to borrow one of your massage chairs. Well, I say the chair, I just mean the control panel. And I say borrow it, but I mean take it, forever, and never give it back' - since when has the Doctor NOT considered that the word 'borrow' covers all such eventualities?

'If they're lucky, they'll fall into the sun before the Shadow Proclamation finds them. Blimey, they're strict' - blimey, Himself's having a ruthless day today...and since when have the Shadow Proclamation been a fate worse than burning-to-death?

'Want to avoid the big thank you scenes, always so embarrassing, I'm just happy to have helped out, no need for people to feel they have to lay flowers at my feet or anything' - so much for Jackson Lake's claims...

Cold: Why does Mark Gatiss keep inflicting his Ice Warrior obsession on us? Just get a ROOM!

Is it just me or is there something pretty distasteful about claiming that the 1919 flu pandemic that slaughtered millions was due to an Ice Warrior biological attack?

Also, if their aim was to sterilise Earth it wasn't NEARLY effective enough.

'Today I boiled some water and I shaved off my beard. And then I put on some clean clothes, Anna. Some fresh, clean clothes. And I will do that every day' - er, whatever happened to 'I found a clean sweater and pants from the stores but I couldn't undo the buttons of my shirt. My fingers were numb and fat with blisters. Frostbite...No. It's too cold to change...Too cold to wash. Too cold to do anything'?

So, um, the Martians were accidentally all-but wiped out in the 1910s by the flu virus they were incubating for use against humanity? How does THAT fit in with Empress of Mars, exactly?

'You have the seeds of hope in you, Issaxyr' - whatever happened to 'No second chances, I'm that kind of a man'? This festering pile of •••• slaughtered millions in his attempt to conquer Earth, why should he be given a free trip to Mars and told to rule over the survivors? The Doc's never given ME a free trip to Mars and I've never killed ANYONE.

Immortal Emperor: OK I s'pose, for the token comic-strip. Though we've had aliens who can be stopped in their tracks by mobile phones before, um, SJA: Invasion of the Bane and Day of the Clown, I think.

To be continued...

'It was a regrettable mistake. We needed to set up Geocorp to explain what happened' - but you set up Geocorp the day BEFORE you made that regrettable mistake that you didn't foresee!

Maybe they mean they had to re purpose Geocorp, set up for another reason, to explain that regrettable mistake.

Nah, in her brilliant five-minutes undercover ('Red Baron One to Stick Insect Base') Donna discovered that 'this whole company is just a front'.

Bing Bong: Fun but not as supremely hilarious as you'd HOPE a story written by Gareth Robert an Clayton Hickman would be.

'I've met millions of capitalist computers' - you HAVE? When, Doc?

Look, there's no WAY that someone (thing. Whatever) intelligent enough to realise that this planet's main problem is too many people, and to very sensibly set about reducing the general level of sorrow by reducing the general number of people is gonna be stupid enough to launch NUCLEAR STRIKES as a means of doing this. What with retaliatory strikes reducing EVERYONE to radioactive cinders, IF we're lucky.

Island of the Sirens: Jason is a treacherous stupid Medea-betraying GIT. Just thought I'd mention it as this story sure as hell doesn't.

'That's the problem with monocular creatures. One big eye, no concept of depth. They tend to be accident prone' - so how did they survive long enough to evolve into intelligent beings, then?

'"The locks bust when the ship crashed." I understood. The Parthenopes were lying to us' - well, I don't understand! How does this disprove their claim that 'when the ship crashed on the island, the prisoners escaped through a hole in the side'? Also, you already KNOW they're liars cos of the whole 'killing aliens and pretending they're just stunned' thing.

Hold Your Horses: 'Harold Godwinson has been sent from England to visit William of Normandy' - what, he was DELIBERATELY going to see William? Why did William take him prisoner then?

'So that you can poach his deer and steal his boar' - seriously, does the Doctor LOOK like he's on a boar-hunt, with no dogs or horses or spears or friends or anything?

Why does this assume that it was Harold's oath to support William that resulted in his invasion, not the fact that William had decided that Edward the Confessing Moron had promised him the English throne?

Also, it really shouldn't be THIS easy to casually rewrite a thousand years of human history.

The Puplet: Does the psychic paper really work like this? Changing 'Happy Christmas!' to 'Happy Hanukkah!' only AFTER the bloke the Doctor's waving it at gets suspicious that the Christmas greeting is 'Not very Mr Goldstein'?

'The kids can see it because, well, to be crude about it, they're not old enough to think they can't see or believe in aliens. You and me, we need [the sonic screwdriver] to help us' - yeah, cos THE DOCTOR'S so cynical he DOESN'T BELIEVE IN ALIENS...

'This mad, weird, bizarre and frankly terribly dressed Doctor person' - this WHAT! Alright, according to the illustrations he's wearing the blue suit and to be honest I'm not nearly as much in love with him as when he's wearing the brown stripy suit (yeah, I never USED to be so shallow before David bloody Tennant, now my capacity to feel any human emotions seems entirely dependent on how much he's gelled that fringe of his in this particular episode) but still, don't you EVER call him terribly dressed!

'It's like when you talk to a cat or a dog - they get your mood from the tone of your voice, your body language and all that, but the words mean nothing' - blimey, he really DID only develop the ability to talk to animals in his next incarnation, didn't he.

The teachers address each other in private as 'Mrs English' etc...?

Not a bad collection, all things considered, even the weakest (i.e. Paul Magrs and Gary Russell) stories were perfectly bearable. It's just that the LAST time I read one of these Storybook things it was, shockingly, really enjoyable.

'BBC Worldwide is to release The Doctor Who Audio Annual featuring audio versions of vintage tales first seen in the Doctor Who Annuals published in the 1960s through to the 1980s.'

Are they mad!

Are they mad!

No, they are greedy

Doctor Who: The Official Annual 2018:

'The Master stole my TARDIS and turned it into a Paradox Machine so he could mess with human history. The poor old girl was in a right state' - what about THE HUMAN RACE! Obviously I wouldn't usually prioritise us stupid apes over Sexy, but she DID cooperate with the Master, the snivelling traitor.

The TARDIS has a ZOO? Since WHEN! Who feeds the animals! Whatever happened to the Doctor finding zoos so grotesquely offensive he got Miniscopes banned across space and time...?

The Z-bomb is 'a series of nuclear bombs'?!

Six months to overthrow an invasion! That's pretty good' - no actually Doctor, it's your second-worst time EVER and you didn't even have the excuse of being shrunk into a house-elf, as far as I can see you just aided and abetted the Monks' genocide for half a year because you were having fun.

Loose in the Lane comic: So one minue Bill's all 'Oh, here we go! When does he think I'm going to get my assignments done?' when summoned by the Doctor, but then she's bursting into his office with wild enthusiasm...is she faking it or what?

Why would the psychic paper claim the Doc's a bin man?

'A good lesson in how things are not always as they first appear. And also in not renting the first house you find' - Bill and chums looked at LOADS of houses you idiot.

Since when do Ice Warriors have CLAWS?

Corner of the Eye:

Oh look. A Moffat short story in which...an alien has a super-evolved ability to hide.

Which means, of course, that Capaldi's sudden 'My god, what if there's an alien with a super-evolved ability to hide!' behaviour is a little...odd.

Obviously I'm not the only one to be thinking this, someone questioned The Moff in DWM about it and...:

'Blimey, there a Doctor Who story I simply don't remember writing...I quite enjoyed it. Didn't see the twist coming, which is a bit surprising in the circumstances.'

Bless!

Yes, it all started out as a mild curiosity in a jumble sale, and now it's turned out to be quite a, quite a great spirit of adventure, don't you think? ;)

'I've met millions of capitalist computers'

When did the Doctor become a Communist?

Well, he pretty much said 'You have nothing to lose but your claims' in Sun Makers, that might be a subtle clue...

"Yes, Ilych, me old China, they are free to say what they want, and you are free to shoot them for it!"

Well I bought "the unofficial 1972 Doctor Who Annual written in 2018" and got my copy today and I think it's wonderful, very evocative of the annuals with authentic looking art and awful jokes pages. It is pricey but think what some people splash out on the first Pertwee annual.

"The Sinister Sponge" should be the story of the Doctor battling a minor Dad's Army character turned evil.

the unofficial 1972 Doctor Who Annual written in 2018

This a timey-wimey thing?

No, back in the Golden Age of Doctor Who annuals, the company that published them, skipped one for 1972 (that would have been out in October 1971 for Christmas and would have featured Three and Jo), so some fans have worked together to create an unofficial one to "fill the gap". It's strictly aimed at the adult fan, and not the ordinary British child that a real 1972 annual would have been aimed at.

the company that published them, skipped one for 1972

Why the hell?!

This is purely speculative but it's possible that they thought the series was going to be cancelled and it wasn't worth producing one. Doctor Who did come very close to ending in early 1970 and given the long lead-in times for producing annuals that seems as plausible a reason as any (cf the last World annual being published in 1985).

Ah, BLESS...Master Annual.

Doctor Who: The Official 2020 Annual:

The Space Lord short story: hey, this is actually rather enjoyable...

...haaaang on, also suspiciously familiar...

YOU NICKED IT FROM THE SECRET IN VAULT 13?!

*Checks* and you nicked the only OTHER short story from Twelve Angels Weeping?!

You couldn't be arsed to whip up a single original short story for £7.99??

With the rest of the Annual basically consisting of literally a few words about each Season Eleven story, I am actually feeling nostalgic for the Anti-Dalek Force's TIME-COMPUTER that can accurately determine on which day a date fell over a period of two centuries!! Say what you like about 70s Dalek Annuals, at least they put in more than a half-hour's effort...

The Witchfinders TARDIS Data File: 'Can the Doctor discover its secret, with a little help from King James?' - HELP? Didn't the git try to drown her as a witch?

The Space Lord short story: hey, this is actually rather enjoyable...

...haaaang on, also suspiciously familiar...

YOU NICKED IT FROM THE SECRET IN VAULT 13?!

*Checks* and you nicked the only OTHER short story from Twelve Angels Weeping?!

You couldn't be arsed to whip up a single original short story for £7.99??


They didn't count on someone like you, Emily, who knows Doctor Who back and front.

Actually - to my slightly hysterical amusement - they OWNED UP after each story, had adverts for the books they'd STOLEN the stories from...of course, they must have known there are plenty of fanatics around who'd spot what they're doing a mile off...

FYI: I have a story in this: https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/terraqueous-/dw1989-annual/hardcover/product-5w9gnn.html

Awww! Congratulations! Sadly there is zero chance of me spending £32.08 to read it...

A lot of libraries have a "suggest a purchase" facility. Possibly you could try that.

The Unofficial Dr Who 1997 Annual has been released, featuring the Eighth Doctor: https://www.lulu.com/shop/kevin-daley/mcganual/hardcover/product-9yj5pj.html?page=1&pageSize=4 (and, yes, I have a story in it)

£34.63!!!!!!!!!!

These are always labour of love, collector's item types of things. Maybe the the price of my children's book will reduce the amount of exclamation marks? [http://tinyurl.com/leonardlonely]

My sympathies - aaahh, I mean congratulations! Just because I rather strongly feel that going from the supreme honour of holding the destiny of the Brig Himself in your hands to messing around with A BLOODY DUCK is a bit of a demotion is no reason you shouldn't be thrilled at getting one of those 'original' book things published...I mean, I don't actually have a problem with the concept of non-Who books the way I do with the existence of Lesser Programmes...

Well, if Sophie Aldred can be Captain Duck in Doctor Who: Zagreus... we're probably all a little quackers.

The gods in their infinite mercy had wiped the existence of Captain Duck from my few remaining braincells.

(Admittedly I have assisted said mercy of said gods by avoiding Zagreus relistens like the plague.)

I am now bearing a grudge against all ducks everywhere...

No need to be fowl...

The Official Annual 2021:

FULL NAME: The Doctor KNOWN ALIASES: The Doctor OCCUPATION: Classified' - rubbish, s/he's got loads more aliases and she makes no secret of the fact her occupation is saving planets!

'When I was trapped on Earth, the Master made my life hell' - oops, forgotten the bit when Pertwee was LOOKING FORWARD to the Master launching another invasion attempt, have we?

'Missy was every bit as dangerous as her other incarnations' - WAS she, though? Gave her Cyber-army to the Doc, never wiped out Gallifrey/half the universe, spent a LOT of time sitting in a box, decided to stand with the Doctor...

'Luckily, I quite like it how it is' - you QUITE LIKE!!!! Sexy's gorgeous blue exterior! Even ECCY mustered more enthusiasm! - 'but I do sometimes wonder what it would loo like with a different coat of paint'- think back to Hell Bent or Happiness Patrol then!

'WARNING: Do not assault a Judoon officer - even the lightest of taps means instant death!' - not for Sarah Jane's half-forms it didn't...

'The Doctor's always happy to see an old friend like me' - er, Jack...you do REMEMBER that when she's Tennant she - er, he - deliberately turned away from you desperately racing towards her and buggered off to the end of the UNIVERSE, right?

'The Doc was looking down in the dumps after that business with the Judoon and the other her' - Graham KNOWS Ruth's another Doctor?! Isn't Yaz confused about the presence of 'a tour guide from Gloucester' as late as Power Of?

'Some people have boring old monitors to keep an eye n stuff, but not me!' - you do in SEVERAL incarnations, you hypocrite!

Ashad is hardly 'a 100 per cent Frankenstein-y guy'. He isn't begging for a mate, for starters.

'She called it a Cyberman, and that's when the warning bells went off: a Cyberman was what Captain Jack had warned us about' - yeah, and you didn't think to ask the Doc what a Cyberman WAS at the time?

Gat and Byron have enormous red-painted noses?!

I don't think you're really helping with the why-would-a-CyberMaster-wear-a-cloak question by announcing it's a 'Protective cloak with Gallifreyan designs'.

'My old man - my on-off husband and occasional wife, the Doctor' - Sweetie, you DIED (in a very final sense) when all your husbands were still boringly male. (Notwithstanding that glance at JODIE! you got in Ruby's Curse which hardly counts against all those lovely photos you produced in Husbands Of.)

'The Empress of the Racnoss picked a cosy spot to hide out - the core of Planet Earth - and that is where the Doctor found her billions of years later' - nah, that's just where the kids were stashed.