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A review by saroz162
A Big Hand for The Doctor by Eoin Colfer
2.0
I first read this when it was published online almost ten years ago, and if I'm honest, it put me off the whole 11 Doctors, 11 Stories concept/collection. That was a bit of an overreaction, but I have to say, coming back to it a decade later...it's still not very good.
I remember a lot of the online criticism being about it being an "action movie" for the least action-y Doctor, complete with a slightly bizarre conceit of a bio-mechanical hand that is pretty far away from anything we'd have ever got from 1960s Doctor Who. There is talk of Gallifrey and Time Lords—and I'll be honest, it puts me off a little, too. But I think if it was a good story, I'd get past it.
Instead, it's hard not to feel like Colfer as more interested in writing an homage to Peter Pan than Doctor Who, because he spends more time connecting those particular dots. The story is a "romp," which is rarely my favorite, but when you have good characters you can have fun with them. Crucially - and I think this is what really kills it for me - the first Doctor and Susan don't seem to be in character at all, despite Hartnell's Doctor historically being the easiest to put across in print. They seem to be little more than a generic Doctor, closer to the new series interpretations, and a generic female companion (would Susan "flick her nails"?) That's...fine...but there's nothing here for me to hang my hat on: it's (supposedly) a celebration of the first Doctor without anything that seems redolent of that era or those performances. What's the point, again?
I remember a lot of the online criticism being about it being an "action movie" for the least action-y Doctor, complete with a slightly bizarre conceit of a bio-mechanical hand that is pretty far away from anything we'd have ever got from 1960s Doctor Who. There is talk of Gallifrey and Time Lords—and I'll be honest, it puts me off a little, too. But I think if it was a good story, I'd get past it.
Instead, it's hard not to feel like Colfer as more interested in writing an homage to Peter Pan than Doctor Who, because he spends more time connecting those particular dots. The story is a "romp," which is rarely my favorite, but when you have good characters you can have fun with them. Crucially - and I think this is what really kills it for me - the first Doctor and Susan don't seem to be in character at all, despite Hartnell's Doctor historically being the easiest to put across in print. They seem to be little more than a generic Doctor, closer to the new series interpretations, and a generic female companion (would Susan "flick her nails"?) That's...fine...but there's nothing here for me to hang my hat on: it's (supposedly) a celebration of the first Doctor without anything that seems redolent of that era or those performances. What's the point, again?