Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag. In this independent column, I review comic books as well as other media.
Because the comic book Doctor Who is a spin-off of the longest running science fiction television series in the history of the medium, you’ll taste a sample of that versatility with this posting.
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After you retrieve your booty from your friendly-neighborhood comic book store, I recommend that you tune in to the free Doctor Who audio broadcast Doctor Who “Redacted."
That link will take you to BBC Sounds, which offers a lot of free podcasts as well as streaming music including the Glastonbury concerts.
Anyhow, just stick in the word "Redacted," or "Doctor Who" in the search function. Sorry for making you do more work than a Fox News pundit. Trying to avoid broken, lost links.
The ten part story had me enthralled to very end. The radio serial isn’t just a bit of fluff. It’s authentic Doctor Who.
Jodie Whittaker participates as the Doctor, along with some familiar voices from the show’s past and present.
Incidentally, if you’re looking for the current Doctor Who series stream and you have no access to BBC America, join AMC+. The new American home for Doctor Who.
By the way, I'm not getting paid in any way, shape or form from either industry. I represent a public service to direct you to Doctor Who, a show that I love, and comic books worth reading. Also trying to save you money by avoiding the bad ones. That's all the Pick of the Brown Bag ever was and still is.
If you haven’t watched Doctor Who’s current season, you’ll still be able to enjoy the comic book which features the likeness of Jo Martin as the Doctor.
Introduced in Jodie Whittaker’s Series Twelve as a mystery Doctor. "The Fugitive of the Judoon" reprises her enigma in Series Thirteen, which comprises the Doctor Who serial "The Flux," now available on blu-ray.
By the by, a second viewing of "The Flux" especially with closed captions reveals a lot of good, solid science fiction and/or far-fetched technology introduced previously.
There’s still some metaphysical tomfoolery regarding the nature of time, but the clutch of stories aren’t nearly as dumbfounding as they were the first time around.
"The Flux" further sheds light on The Division, an inscrutable organization also introduced in Series Twelve.
The Division plays a big part in "The Flux." The Doctor’s arch-nemesis The Master at the conclusion of Series Twelve reveals the Doctor worked for the Division, but they wiped out her memories of her association.
That’s not really a new technique. In fact it’s an oddball centerpiece of Doctor Who.
The Time Lords are aliens that live on the planet Gallifrey. They forswore interfering in other cultures’ development except in the rarest of occasions. As a result they gave up casual time travel.
The Doctor disagreed with his people. So, he and his granddaughter Susan steal a faulty, decommissioned TARDIS to leave Gallifrey.
The show gives many other reasons why the Doctor and Susan steal the TARDIS, but one remains steadfast. The Doctor and Susan wanted to explore the space-time continuum in total freedom.
In Patrick Troughton’s final Doctor Who serial “The War Games,” the Doctor has no choice but to reveal himself to the Time Lords who eventually punish him for his crimes against Gallifrey. Two of which include interference with other cultures and the theft of a TARDIS.
The Tom Baker serial "The Deadly Assassin" indicates the Celestial Intervention Agency, perhaps the governmental Gallifreyan face of Division, intervened on the Doctor’s behalf.
The Time Lords strike a bargain with the Doctor and use him as their operative, for those aforementioned rare occasions, as evidenced in the Colin Baker era episode “The Two Doctors.”
What happens in between the "second" Doctor Patrick Troughton and "third" Doctor Jon Pertwee eras of Doctor Who is anybody’s guess.
Suffice to say, Jon Pertwee as the Doctor now carries out the original sentence imposed by the Time Lords. A new face. Confined to the planet earth. Although, curiously, they have rewarded him with legal ownership of the TARDIS he originally stole. The Time Lords furthermore alter the Doctor’s memory so he cannot operate so much as the TARDIS’ flashing light atop its police box shell. In one episode, the Doctor manages to transport himself into a pile of dust bins. No. This Doctor isn't going anywhere.
Now, we get to Jo Martin who retroactively predates William Hartnell’s first Doctor.
This Doctor, whom we know little about, operated with greater knowledge of The Division. At some point she becomes just as much as a fugitive as the Doctor we know and the Division obliterates her memory, not just alters it.
So, William Hartnell’s Doctor truly believes himself to be the first, the original. As he often mentions.
Reality Break
It’s somewhat unfortunate that show runner Chris Chibnall created this schism. Doctor Jo Martin would have fit nicely in between Patrick Troughton’s and Jon Pertwee’s times as the Doctor. It irritates me when people don’t take the simpler solution and instead create friction. On the bright side, nothing in his treatment conflicts with the Doctor being “half-human, on his mother’s side.” So, I’ll take what I can get.
Fiction Resumes
Jody Houser takes on the so-called fugitive Doctor. I’m against this label because most of the Doctor’s life has been one of a fugitive. Why she should be singled out is beyond me.
Nevertheless, this is mostly unexplored territory, but Houser’s characterization of the Doctor rings true. She's also trying to balance out the Doctor as an operative for the somewhat lawful evil Division and as the Doctor we know. It's not an enviable task, but she manages it with aplomb.
The story begins at the finish of a previous adventure with the Doctor teaming up with a Weeping Angel. The Division uses any species to get the job done, including the Doctor's traditional enemies. So, a truce is established.
The vignette which works as a short-short story smoothly segues to the Doctor's new mission and new companion, Taslo.
Perhaps because of Taslo's similarity to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rupert Giles shows up to handle the Doctor's and Taslo's mission.
Taslo by the way is a Time Lord, and Time Lord names are cumbersome. It must be in their Constitution and some old asses from the Time Lord Council refuse to change it. So Taslo is probably short for something like Taslocresceanumean. Every Time Lord no matter class or status shortens his name or assumes a nick-name.
The Division want wholesale genocide of the cult that offends them. To that effect, they issue the Doctor a ton of weapons to do the job. What's hilarious is that they actually thought the Doctor would drop a bomb, no questions asked.
In the best example of Houser's balance between the Division's Doctor and our Doctor, the Doctor investigates rather than instigates.
Being true to the Doctor's ideals, the Doctor does something quite Doctorish that will delight fans of the series.
The move does however put Taslo on notice. The Doctor isn't so much working for the Division, but using the Division for her own ends. A nice bit of insight from Houser.
If we accept that the Doctor is still the Doctor though perhaps more proactive, we may argue the hypothesis that she uses the Division's vast resources to better pin-point threats to the universe. Ones that she can then thwart in her own way.
The Doctor and Taslo land on the planet they were meant to blow up, and it's here where in issue two, they meet the peaceful species that the Time Lords and/or/nor Division want to exterminate.
The second issue explores the question why. Why do the Time Lords and/or/nor Division consider these fellows a threat? The aliens greet the Doctor and Taslo with open arms.
Some may be reminded of the myth of Thanksgiving. It's not a bad comparison. The Division sent the Doctor and Taslo to murder innocent people. The people invite them to dinner and try to make friends.
Taslo as you can see cannot believe the Doctor's willingness to give the aliens the benefit of doubt. This gibes with the idea of the Doctor's legend of being The Oncoming Storm. Eventually, Taslo comes around.
Though not at first. Taslo demonstrates fealty to the Time Lords in a similar way all the Time Lords seem to trust the ruling body throughout all but the recent episodes of the series.
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Though the Time Lords may have once been quite good. Even the Doctor admits this in "War Games," they become much more corrupt as the series progresses.
Perhaps one shouldn't blame the Time Lords and instead look to the writers being exposed to corrupt governments all over the real world, but where's the fun in that?
Gallifrey apparently only has one golden age of government after "The War Games." That occurs after Collin Baker's Doctor faces "Trial of a Time Lord." Though it's not the gist of the episode, we learn that insurrectionists are using the Trial as a distraction to overthrow Gallifrey's current government. Presumably this era lasts until the final days of Paul McGann's Doctor.
Taslo finally regrets her actions and sees the light when the aliens targeted for extermination reveal not a secret, but something that just didn't come up in conversation.
These first two issues of the new Doctor Who series are quite entertaining, especially with the elegant and accurate art of Roberta Ingranata.
I must admit to growing tired of Houser's multiple crossovers and reiterations with the Doctor and her past incarnations, but this new series has all the energy and originality of Houser's much more memorable non-gimmicky run of Doctor Who.
