Cunningly, this book makes plot points out of the differences between the original novel by Baum and the 1939 film version of 'The Wizard of Oz' so a lot of potential nits turn out not to be nits at all... but even so the constant references to ruby "shoes" is wrong for either.

Why does the Doctor assume that the Oz stories have been erased from history just because an admittedly well-read rando from 1939 has never heard of them?

It's plausible that said rando could have read 'The Hobbit' but wouldn't Gandalf be an unlikely newbie to compare the Doctor to?

K9 is not actually a dog so why would he make a disparaging remark about cats... even in the service of a dreadful pun?

The cover picture is a massive spoiler. Why not preserve the surprise by making it a pic of the Doctor instead, as she also wears the daft massive hat in the course of the narrative?!

wouldn't Gandalf be an unlikely newbie to compare the Doctor to?

The THIRTEENTH Doctor, certainly. The Seventh, on the other hand...

K9 is not actually a dog so why would he make a disparaging remark about cats.

He WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!

How did they get this past the L. Frank Baum* estate?


*Obligatory Emily Explanation: L(yman). Frank Baum was the chap that wrote the original Oz novels.

*Googles* Ah, he's been dead for more than 75 years. Ergo, his stuff is all up for grabs.

*Obligatory Emily Explanation: L(yman). Frank Baum was the chap that wrote the original Oz novels.

Not hugely necessary as Baum is a character in this book.

Well I hope Sir Thomas Mallory isn't gonna turn up in Legends of Camelot, he's a rapist.

Not hugely necessary as Baum is a character in this book.

I did not know that.

Why does the Doctor assume that the Oz stories have been erased from history just because an admittedly well-read rando from 1939 has never heard of them?

Well, also because the cinema that's supposed to be showing it now also hasn't heard of it.

The cover picture is a massive spoiler.

Also, grossly inaccurate. The hat doesn't have crab-apples as clearly described in the text and what's with the stupid TARDIS-badge? S/he DESPISES Sexy! ('You may as well try to fly a second hand gas stove!' - Claws of Axos. And that's before you get to Simm CANNIBALISING the poor darling, not to mention topping himself rather than spend five minutes being imprisoned there...)

DON'T give an info-dump about the imminent World War Two in front of the doorman, morons! Not to mention all that stuff you were spilling in front of Theodore...

'She'd abandoned the book after only a few pages' - does JODIE! not share, say, Tom and Matt's ability to speed-read?

Look, it's one thing for Hartnell not to have any mercury, but to still not have any in stock by the time he's JODIE!...(As well as the Daleks making the Doctor the Doctor (Witch's Familiar) there's a good argument to be made that it's the Doctor turning up looking for some sodding mercury that made the static-electricited insular city-dwellers into the universe-conquering Daleks so you'd think s/he'd've learnt her/his lesson...)

Can't believe someone with the Doctor's tragic-Earth-fixation wouldn't have read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I seem to remember Troughton being au fait with whoever he met in the Land of Fiction? (Well, maybe not the Karkus but you can't expect THE DOCTOR to stoop to comic-book-nonsenses.)

'"It must be their own language. Chumbley-speak. Chumblese. Whatever." "Why doesn't the TARDIS translate?" asked Ryan. "Ah, who translates the translator?" said the Doctor, which was really no answer at all' - well, QUITE. (Should be grateful when the book nitpicks itself to save me the bother but somehow I never am.)

'The Doctor had never let them down before' - really? She got Grace killed soon as look at her, and then there's getting several planets wiped out by saving Tim Shaw, getting them blown up by a mine on a rubbish-planet, failing to so much as save a big spider, failing to save Yaz's granny's husband's life, etc etc etc...

'Toes cut off, eyes poked out or dancing in red-hot shoes for eternity!' - yup, you've certainly fulfilled your eye-gouging duties...

'For while only hours ago he'd had two beautiful blue eyes, now he had only one. An empty socket stared at me' - but hey, why only gouge out eyes ONCE when you can do it TWICE!

So when Ryan's cutting Yaz's bonds she's all 'Leave me, get the Doctor!' but when he frees her and hands her the knife, 'she was going to free his legs, but he shook his head. "No, get the Doctor first."'

Ryan is 'one of the kindest, gentlest men [Yaz] had ever known'? (Look, I like Ryan but he's a boy not a man and he can be a bit of a git towards, say, GRAHAM. Plus he really likes shooting things.)

Yaz doesn't think to make herself a torch from the campfire when going into the dark forest? Or, y'know, keep a proper torch in her pocket?

'I want to stroke the nice kitty! I love the nice kitty!' - it's slightly worrying that the Companion most like me is the one who's just had his brains removed...

'"What if the scarecrows had taken away my brain, and Melinda had taken away my hearts, and the lion had taken away my courage? What then?" She looked horror-stricken. "I'd just be this hard-hearted, scared, silly woman with a nice coat and a sonic screwdriver"' - well, aside from the nice coat, anyway. (And since when has Thirteen thought of herself as a woman rather than a 'man...I mean woman'?)

To be continued...

'They all turned off the road of yellow brick and set off across a barren heath, a much less pleasant terrain. K9, in particular, struggled considerably' - so pick him up and carry him, morons.

'Graham started to cry. "I want K9! I miss K9!"' and once more I find myself in complete agreement with the half-wit...

Why did JODIE! tell her Strays all about Cybermen and their gold allergy despite them not usually having a gold allergy any more, and her being pathologically close-mouthed on such subjects as herself, Gallifrey, the Daleks, etc etc...

'We going to do that scary thing right now' - they're happy to drop the Doctor into a tree to scare her (yeah, JODIE!'s not exactly on top form but she CAN outwit flying Ogrons, which is kinda reassuring after THE JUDOON kept her prisoner for decades) even though Missy TOLD 'em to bring the Doctor to her? And then they think 'We go tell the Mistress what we done. She be very happy' - seriously, after Frontier you wouldn't think the Master would work with Ogrons again any more than s/he'd work with Daleks...

'Why had she not asked more questions of the Airgrons when she had the chance?...The Airgrons were right. She didn't even have enough brains to fill a spoon' - yup, it's always painful when the writers NOTICE the flaws in their novels and think that pointing 'em out before the nitpickers can do it somehow AMELIORATES the situation...

'"So you're a guard...called Guard?"..."Well, you're called the Doctor," Theodore said. "Yes, but I'm not a...well, I am, but not exactly...oh, fair enough"' - well, thanks for clarifying THAT age-old question, Doc.

'"I used to say that sort of thing," the Doctor whispered in an aside to Theodore. "'My dear madam,' I'd say, looking down my nose at them. And it was quite a nose, I can tell you. Never realised just how condescending it sounded"' - DARLING JODIE! (She's totally talking Pertwee, isn't she.)

'There wasn't enough light to read by' - THE DOCTOR doesn't have a torch in her capacious pockets?! Then use the sonic's light!

'Lucky me. I've got a whole host of twisted sisters' - that's not fair, the vast majority of mad Time Lord Renegades are male (WERE male, obviously they're all becoming the Meddling Nun and suchlike NOW).

The first confrontation between a female Master and a female Doctor should be on-screen the way the gods intended, not in a kiddie-book. Even leaving aside the timey-wimeyness of them meeting out of order (JODIE! showed zero emotional reaction when she thought it was the Rani, i.e. that there were still Time Lords from before Gallifrey's numerous destructions that could casually cross her timestream in spite of this never happening when she was Nine, Ten and Eleven (well, aside from Dalek Universe that made an appropriately big deal about it.))

Also, she should've given serious consideration to just KILLING MISSY before she became O and, y'know, DESTROYED GALLIFREY. It's not like s/he's been above screwing around with the Web of Time to save Gallifrey before...

'I looked up the Rani, we did the whole "schoolgirl chums" thing - pyjama party, braiding each other's hair, doing our nails, watching chick flicks, brutally murdering the pizza delivery boy' - yes, adorable and I need BF to do an audio on this subject immediately but I don't really see how that WORKS what with timestreams and everything...

'Missy grinned. "You're wrong about the coat, obvs - you've got the fashion sense of a Cabbage Patch Kid"' - that's pretty much what I said! Always a bad sign when you find yourself agreeing with the villain...

'She was through madness and out the other side, and, what was more, she liked it that way. She loved it. Madness and cruelty were her meat and drink' - I'm simultaneously thinking YES! and isn't it a pity THE DOCTOR never noticed in, say, Paper Moon when she was rhapsodising about her friend who 'made out like she was rotten to the core. But I know, deep down, she was magnificent' and thinking Hey, that's a bit unfair, Missy was definitely reforming towards the end of Season 10/36 of Blessed Memory...

Theodore spots the hourglass and the Doctor...doesn't?

'She disguised her TARDIS as a grandfather clock once before, and it's not like her to repeat herself' - are you ••••••• kidding me! NO ONE IN ZE UNIVERSE repeats themselves as often as the Master! Including her/his TARDIS which is FREQUENTLY a grandfather clock!

The Doctor just nicks some mercury from Missy's TARDIS? How come she lets her off so easy when, say, the poor dear Monk gets his dimensional stabiliser stolen...

'"You're full up to the brim. Vessels of virtue!" Missy stuck her fingers down her throat and gagged violently' - and she's not the only one.

'Missy took advantage of the distraction to grab the pointed witch's hat off the Doctor's head' - jeez, JODIE! isn't even competent enough to hang on to a HAT...

'When I was here before, the Master of the Land of Fiction had a library with every book every written' - you say that like you've only been here once before. Not that I can blame Jacqueline Rayner/the Doctor for just wiping their memories of Conundrum, Head Games, The Crooked Man, City of Spires, Night's Black Agents, The Wreck of the Titan, Legend of the Cybermen...

'I know now that it's a bit different for you than for me. That you were a man and now you're a woman, and you feel OK with either. And it's the same for Missy too' - which bit of Missy squealing '"Noooo! Please don't tell me I got back to - you know - again. Ugh." She put her finger in her mouth and made a retching sound. "Not a stinky boy! I might give myself cooties!"' did you somehow not grasp...?

'They'd probably encountered more monsters in Sheffield than the rest of the universe combined!' - are you KIDDING me!

She's totally talking Pertwee, isn't she.

Possibly, but the nose thing makes me think more of Tom.

They both have magnificent honkers, but only one of 'em looks down it whilst oozing sexist condescension...

Just had a (very) quick browse through the Third Doctor transcripts, and it seems he called a lot of people "My dear". He was probably being just as condescending to the various men (military, government, etc) as he was to the women. Any lingering sexism was probably squashed by all the time he spent with Liz, Jo and Sarah Jane.
Contrast with Tom and his "You're a beautiful woman, probably"

Any lingering sexism was probably squashed by all the time he spent with Liz, Jo and Sarah Jane.

Hmm. Time spent with Miss Grant ('I thought you took an A-Level in science.' 'I didn't say I passed.') is unlikely to turn a born misogynist into a feminist. Ditto for Liz, who seemed content to swan around in mini-skirts playing the assistant without a murmur of protest after the Doctor stole HER job of UNIT Scientific Advisor from under her nose.

As for Sarah...sure, threatening to burn the Doctor at the stake eventually reduced his more blatant exhibitions of toxic masculinity ('We need somebody around here to make the coffee' 'That's a generous admission. Especially coming from one of the fair sex') but unfortunately this merely resulted in him mansplaining to Sarah that she should tell Thalira about this Women's Lib thing, which was slightly missing the point...

Just had a (very) quick browse through the Third Doctor transcripts, and it seems he called a lot of people "My dear". He was probably being just as condescending to the various men (military, government, etc) as he was to the women.

A quick search brought ME to Dimensions in Time, which provides us with no fewer than three Pertwee 'madam's, with such gems as:

'Well considering the quality of everything you have, madam, I would say that your prices are rather expensive.'

'Madam, what year is this?'

and, my personal favourite:

'I've got a few tricks up my sleeve yet, madam. It's time for you to start losing.'

Of course, this may not so much prove MY point as prove yours, that people may be misremembering Pertwee as a condescending 'madam' type...I couldn't possibly stoop so low as to win an argument with Dimensions in Time, I'd rather lose/die...

Contrast with Tom and his "You're a beautiful woman, probably"

That's not sexist so much as asexual. You know, the way a Doctor SHOULD be, dammit...

That's not sexist so much as asexual.
Yes, that's what I was saying... I think I just worded it badly.

The Doctor wasn't the only one calling people "My dear" back then, the Brig says "my dear Doctor" more than once, and the Master probably picked up the habit from the Doctor and just kept it going longer.... Although the Master probably did mean it condescendingly.

has never read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

When she has when she was Colin, he's lecturing people about it in the Quicksilver audio.

Of course, if JODIE! should happen to have erased all memory of ever being Colin from her mind, who am I to criticise.

Dimensions in Time...provides us with no fewer than three Pertwee 'madam's'

The Devil's Hoofprints provides us with a couple more, though admittedly they're not much more canonical than Dimensions in Time's, given it's clearly Tim Treloar rather than Jon Pertwee who's uttering said 'madam's...

has never read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

When she has when she was Colin, he's lecturing people about it in the Quicksilver audio.

Of course, if JODIE! should happen to have erased all memory of ever being Colin from her mind, who am I to criticise.

McGann's got a copy though (Storm Warning)...