#17
The Infinity Doctors
By Lance Parkin
Happy 35th anniversary everyone! Be aware though that we are a little late to the party. It was, let’s see, almost as long ago now as the combined run of Classic Doctor Who. Which is fine, obviously. I’m fine with that. (Oh god, oh Jesus.)
The question on these sorts of occasions is how best to celebrate. The most popular answer is “have lots of Doctors in it.” This approach tends to be very good for ratings and it’s always a bit of fun; it did BBC Books no harm in selling their launch title, and that wasn’t even on an anniversary! However, it must be said that (at least according to, ahem, prevailing opinion) The Eight Doctors wasn’t very good — partly because it’s got so many Doctors in it. And while we’re at it this tends to hamper those anniversary shindigs as well. There just isn’t enough for everybody to do.
I think we can infer from this one’s title that Lance Parkin and/or BBC Books knew that we were expecting more of this, and they felt comfortable poking fun at it. Fair enough. What we get instead is a rather more left-field way of celebrating: The Infinity Doctors is an Elseworlds (or should that be Unbound?) sort of tale, set in a version of Doctor Who where he never left Gallifrey (or at least not permanently), with a suitably grandiose plot to make it okay that this is a one and done.
Provided you’re willing to settle for just one Doctor (although curiously enough, there are several copies of him in it), there’s a definite atmosphere of celebration here, not only of the text of the show itself but the general wider idea of Doctor Who. For the committed nerds there are multiversal references to telly stuff like the Hand of Omega, book stuff like Lungbarrow and never-got-made stuff like the Doctor’s father being a man named Ulysses. There’s gloriously forbidden stuff like the Doctor having a family and falling in love (several times), and there’s seemingly frowned-upon stuff like the origin story of the Sontarans, and as a bonus a creative yet credible solution to their war with the Rutans. The Master also appears in it — sorry, The Magistrate — and in this free-for-all context he can be the Doctor’s best friend who unabashedly loves him. What is that but a treat? Finally, crucially, The Infinity Doctors uses the premise of a Doctor that doesn’t travel the universe as a springboard to, well, what else but get him into that sort of thing. (Since a full blown canon prequel about the Doctor leaving Gallifrey would presumably be a treat too far.)
There’s a lot to like here. And I do like it. But at the risk of popping the balloons so festively arranged for you-know-who’s big 3-5, The Infinity Doctors leaves me a bit cold.
For starters, almost the entire thing is set on Gallifrey. You know: the planet so restrictive that the Doctor would traditionally rather be anywhere else in the universe but here. This is, of course, a gentler Gallifrey with a friendly version of the Master and everyone being nice to the Doctor; getting to spend all this time here is likely another one of those anniversary treats, a peek behind the curtain. It even leans towards that more squalid and relatable place we saw in The Deadly Assassin, with passages like “Some of the most awe-inspiring buildings in the known universe became everyday experiences, places you had to walk through to get to or from lectures.” But it’s still not a setting exactly rife with intrigue and character. Fundamentally it is a place to escape from.
We do get somewhat of a look at how the other half lives, aka Low Town — a decidedly unglamorous sector outside the stately Capitol. There is certainly a bit of crime and intrigue here, even a kidnapping and a couple of murders. But the story doesn’t linger here, or on the people here. I get the vaguest whiff of Ankh Morpork about Low Town, especially with the (admittedly very likeable) duo of Watchmen, Raimor and Peltroc, doing the rounds. There’s a fun gag about Raimor being older and wiser but currently inhabiting a younger body, whereas the much more green Peltroc is at the older end of his first regeneration, although the gag is admittedly a bit “you had to be there” in print.
Within the Capitol the action ping-pongs between the Doctor negotiating a peace conference between two ancient warring species and a mysterious murder spree by an equally mysterious figure. There’s a great wheeze with the Doctor appearing in two places at once to appease his guests; even better are the scenes where he takes the lead Sontaran and Rutan to the far future to try to cure their warmongering. It’s more interesting, on balance, than the kidnap/murder stuff, although there is a great Jekyll-and-Hyde concept applied to the murderer.
The people in the Capitol just aren’t all that fascinating, with the possible exception of the Magistrate, and that’s mostly the uncanny novelty of a guy that looks like Roger Delgado being terribly nice to people. I don’t get as much of a vicarious thrill from, for example, the name “Hedin” appearing a lot; look, it’s him out of Arc Of Infinity, and he’s still obsessed with Omega! The most rounded one here has to be Larna, the Doctor’s favourite pupil and companion stand-in. (And just this once, romantic prospect.) She’s got a good amount of pluck and, in a climactic moment, is more willing to stand up to the Doctor than anyone else. I’m still not entirely sure what to take from her decision, or the Doctor later on engineering it so that she didn’t actually take it. (Alas, it’s Unbound, so there’s not likely to be any follow-up.)
On balance, I think the plot is a big point of contention for me here. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just, well… familiar. Omega, ancient Time Lord genius who seemingly died getting Gallifrey its power, finds himself trapped in a universe of antimatter, and now schemes to get back to our universe — a ploy that requires him to swap places with another Time Lord. (Guess Who.)
Many details are different, but this is still quite openly the plot of The Three Doctors, isn’t it? And I mean, it’s arguably better. (I’m a bit of a Three Doctors sceptic.) But it’s still that plot again, and I have a hard time wrapping my head around it being okay just to repeat it, even in the context of an Unbound story. Wasn’t there any other story you could tell about Gallifrey? I’m all for an appropriate amount of nostalgia on an anniversary, but it’s the characters you want to see again, not necessarily the scripts. The whole thing just gives me deja vu.
It bears repeating that the details are different. Omega’s situation is somewhat new — he’s got company over there, and it’s very significant who, albeit only in a one-and-done way. The Doctor’s response to Omega’s offer is different, at least for a time; the reason he then changes his mind is perhaps an example of character growth along the same lines as the “real” Doctor learning empathy from his early companions, aka becoming more like the character we recognise. In which case it’s good stuff for a pseudo prequel, but I still find it difficult to square the levels of similarity at work here.
I just don’t think I get The Infinity Doctors. It’s as thoughtfully written as I’ve come to expect from Parkin — his books are always polished, almost stately affairs. And there can be no doubt that he understands Doctor Who: quite apart from all the nerdiness, look at the unspecific Doctor in this, who without any actorly accoutrements and with a completely different context (even on an emotional level) manages to exude just the same charm and eccentricity we’re used to. His easy acceptance into Gallifreyan society doesn’t come from his making huge concessions, or none more so than his (for some reason) deciding to remain there; he still is the Doctor, is still accepted as such, and Time Lord society is obviously better for having him around. Again, the book celebrates this character, and that’s great. Nevertheless, for me the mix of an Unbound tale we can utterly leave behind and a plot we have already left behind adds up to a glittering, charming, but somewhat disposable book.
6/10
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