Haiku

Brilliant, if slow,

Malcolm Hulke does the Cold War

Thoughtful and spiky.

Random gibberish,

Saved by cast and production

But it has power.

Apocalyptic

Simple, but huge and gripping

Seven-parters rule!

Holmes’s weakest script.

It’s random Master nonsense,

But still evil fun.

Plot’s a bit messy

But it’s fun and hard as nails.

Watch in black-and-white.

Fairly stupid, but

Also funny, with a theme.

It’s enjoyable!

Hulke’s social conscience

Instead of a story.  Zzzzz.

Thoughtful, but dreary.

Endearing wibble.

Interchangeable plot beats

But iconic charm.

Does the plot make sense?

Quite a strong Dalek story,

But where’s the ghost mood?

Good, but a bit dull.

Novelisation’s better.

I still love it, though.

Stupider, but more

Exciting than the first one.

It looks better too.

An underrated

Four-parter, but followed by

Two more episodes.

Unlike ‘The Mutants’,

The first four episodes stink.

After that it’s good.

Genuinely good.

Omega’s monumental.

It’s also funny!

The coolest, oddest

Pertwee story, with Robert

Holmes on mighty form.

Hulke’s being stupid.

Funny, thoughtful, epic…  but

The plotting’s lazy.

Nation’s still doing

Sixties pacing, yes, but the

Production’s flaccid.

Working class miners,

Environmentalism,

Great baddies…  and Jo!

Gormless director

Gets the tone wrong, which isn’t

Robert Holmes’s fault.

Earnest and worthy

But a bit dull, except for

Reptile comedy.

Dour, but cool ideas.

Galloway’s fascinating.

Interesting Daleks.

Terrance Dicks works hard,

Target’s first original

novelisation.

The most important

Target book.  Shocking, savage

Hulke’s cold and angry.

By Terrance, alas.

It’s reasonably good, but

It should have been more.

Startlingly strong.

A simple plot suits Terrance

And he worked hard here.

An early Dicks book.

He isn’t lazy here, but

The plot’s trivial.

Terrance Dicks does well.

Surprisingly hard-hitting.

Another good one.

Fun and jolly, but

Quietly important with

a dodgy Doctor.

Even today, Hulke’s

Brilliant and shocking.  Wow.

But also joyless.

Best thing he’s written.

Forget Letts’s PDAs.

An absolute joy.

Strong, reliable

Dicks from his hard-working days.

A solid Target.

One of Target’s best.

Hayles wrote two, both brilliant:

A proper novel.

Death and tragedy

This stunning book’s flawed hero:

Governor Trenchard.

A Target favourite.

Forget the TV story.

I love it to bits.

The worst Target book.

Everyone failed, both in prose

And in scriptwriting.

Like a fairy tale.

The episodes were better,

But this is fun too.

Dicks makes it darker.

He’s angrier than Holmes was.

But it’s still funny.

Annoying and dumb

For the first hundred pages

But after that, great fun.

I’ve always liked this.

Outdoes the original.

Makes Nation look good.

Hulke’s books still matter.

A serious novelist

Giving it his all.

Sort of piddling.

Does this tale really matter?

But I enjoyed it.

Again, Malcolm Hulke

Transcends the original.

An angry novel.

Underrated, but

Terrance fails with Galloway.

I still like it, though.

Terrance Dicks ain’t Hayles.

It’s mediocre, frankly.

Ortron’s got dumber.

More conventional

Than the TV story, but

I still admire it.

The plot’s wet cardboard.

The prose is breathless cliches.

I found it a laugh.

Faithful to the film,

Because that’s also worthless.

There’s just nothing here.

Hated at the time.

The afterlife’s un-Whoish,

But it’s middling.

Faceless enemies.

Dull plotting.  Leonard never

Fared well with Pertwee.

World Distributors

Brain-dead and resurrected

By Bulis.  (It’s fun.)

Disjointed plotting,

But Gary Russell’s best book.

Grim and sinister.

Superb world-building,

Dramatic developments,

Forgettable cast.

Unique and special,

Beyond any previous

Re-imagining.

All forgettable:

Aliens, baddies, plot.

Fun, but throwaway.

McIntee’s wanking

But it is actually cool.

The Master’s mighty.

Brain not required.

Terrance on autopilot.

Charming and funny.

Pertwee historical,

Simple, straightforward, Russian.

It’s actually fine.

Gatiss apes Target,

Warm, happy and confident.

But overrated.

The wondrous Magrs, but

Simpler than his 8DAs.

I must reread this.

Unpleasant, ugly,

Drugs, violence, in your face,

I worship this book.

Simple, almost Dicks,

But evil bastard gangsters

Make it really work.

Sincere, hard SF.

Good ideas.  But fades in the

Last eighty pages.

Letts writes well about

Post-war National Service

The rest is dribble.

Lacking confidence.

More competent than some of

Letts’s books, but dull.

Speed-written tosh

From someone who could write, but

Hadn’t bothered here.

Boring when on Earth,

Gets good in the far future,

Both flabby and strong.

Funny and lively,

Good characterisation,

I liked the history.

Down-to-earth, high-tech,

Real science in Australia.

Serious and good.

I really liked it.

The Doctor’s dying after

Metebelis III.

Loopy gibberish

With attack parrots and an

Evil ten-year-old.

Mindlessly okay.

A super-tank wreaks havoc,

But forgettably.

TV Comic beats

‘Planet of the Spiders’ and

‘The Green Death’, by years.

This one’s more thoughtful.

Intelligent aliens

Who’ll eat your fences.

Again, more grown-up.

Rewrites ‘The Silurians’

With nice fish people.

Next, a version of

‘The Ambassadors of Death’.

With deviations.

Just like its namesake

TV story, but Robbie’s

More adorable.

Based on ‘Inferno’?

Maybe, plus the Fire People

At the planet’s core.

In a thousand years,

A feudal England will have

Kings and bulldozers.

The golden age of

Countdown, with gorgeous paintings…

But a boring script.

Pure historical

With Nazis, World War Two and

The French Resistance.

The evil Vogans

Are tragic, while the Doctor

Is genocidal.

Petrification,

Plastic people (not Autons)

And a small village.

Pure historical

With Dickensian London,

The Wild West and Oz.

Crazy futures and

Victorian time travel.

Countdown’s best story.

Dalek runaround.

Its original ideas

Don’t save it, frankly.

Empty action tripe

But the one-off companion

is villainous fun.

Post-apocalypse,

Another future London,

Bonkers, but empty.

Serious SF,

Unknowable aliens

And a thoughtful script.

Rambling, dull SF

But laudably serious

With good worldbuilding.

Cool foreign gangsters,

Hypno-rays, an old sea dog…

But no steel fisting.

It’s like Quatermass.

Civilisation’s crumbling.

The army burns trains.

A friendly abbot,

Wants to blow up scientists

And so save the world.

World War Two again,

With Nazi-occupied France.

Good strip, weak ending.

The Master visits

The battle of Culloden

And goes nuclear.

Dull Daleks, again.

Another nuclear sub.

It’s short and pointless.

‘Trial by Fire’’s

Fire People (probably).

Better art…  but dull.

A dinosaur world,

With caveman apes and spiders

Like Dan Dare’s Mekon.

Science-hating and

disjointed, but amusing.

Unintentionally.

Incoherent and

Perfunctory, but funny

As Daleks rob banks.

More knuckle-dragging,

But the second half is great…

Until the reset.

Wonderfully wacky:

Godzilla-sized insects find

A tiny TARDIS.

Medieval magic

Is real, with astrology

And cauldron science.

A mad scientist

And his buck-toothed daughter make

Metal-eating bugs.

Lunar explorers

Meet Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb.

Sinister and good.

Doddery hero

With principles.  Aliens

Refuse to invade!

Bonkers two-pager.

Dr Who commits murder

In TV Comic.

Dr Who in drag

Robs a vault, while looking like

A sex offender.

Troughton’s recorder,

The Brigadier’s private yacht

And fish hypnosis.

Dr Who teaches

Himself how to levitate,

From a book.  Awesome.

A mad scientist

Grows a plant that eats his house.

Get the weedkiller!

More science-hating.

Technological progress

Is wrong and evil.

Great art, nice story.

Fog swallows a seaside town.

A blind man saves us.

A villain who’s not

The Master at all, no, no,

Targets the crown jewels.

It’s ‘The Time Monster’!

But better.  More exciting.

Carried by the art.

Daemons visit Earth.

They’re wise and benevolent.

We’re all savages.

A living planet

Drains the TARDIS’s power.

So Dr Who kills.

Poison gas in space.

A planet will go nova.

Evacuate Earth!

Unintentionally

comedic historical,

In both art and script.

Scary, violent,

from another universe…

Criminal Doctor.

Freaky undead Jo

Attends her own funeral

And sees aliens.

It’s quite interesting.

After those revolutions,

What happened next, eh?

Alien toads raid

A planet like Ancient Greece.

Un-Whoish ending.

A conversation

With the Master in prison.

The plot weakens it.

Barrie Mitchell’s great,

An old-school comics artist.

Orman’s serious.

Roberts is funny,

Which is rare-ish in comics.

Salmon fits it too.

It’s action nonsense,

But the Brigadier saves it.

It’s okay, actually.

Uninspired story,

but Mike Collins makes it fun.

Pertwee action!  Hai!

Slick and competent,

But meaningless.  The new Dicks!

The artwork’s good, though.

Regurgitated

Pertwee-isms, but good art.

There’s no point in this.

It writes the Doctor

As the Brigadier, barking

orders to soldiers.

Startlingly like

‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’.

Also, rather good.

A civil servant

Becomes a supervillain

And completely fails.

1970s

Music concerts and long hair.

Hey, it’s groovy, man.

There’s a bomb in a

Nuclear power station.

The Doctor’s sexist.

The Doctor watches

Peter Cushing’s Dalek films

And laughs his head off.

It’s explaining why

Liz left UNIT.  There are lots

Of stories like this.

It’s a prose trailer

for ‘White Darkness’, McIntee’s

first New Adventure.

The Master visits

UNIT before Season 8.

Dicks knows it backwards.

By Gareth Roberts,

But with Chelonians and

No jokes.  It’s okay.

Following in Hulke’s

Scary, savage footsteps, to

Kill an innocent.

An alt-universe

Story that’s quite good, until

The end collapses.

Andy Lane writes a

Slick, smooth adventure that you’ll

Enjoy, then forget.

Decalog 3 sucks.

This is a chapter, not a

story.  It’s not great.

1970s

Homage to Fawlty Towers,

Bond, etc.

The Doctor’s in an

escape-proof cell, mirroring

the Master’s capture.

Paul Magrs exploding

in kaleidoscopic shards.

I loved it, of course.

‘Day of the Daleks’

part 5, with paradoxes

instead of Daleks.

Gary Russell does

Pre-Marvel comics, which is

great.  Except the names.

I love the Moroks,

Although the ending needs work.

The premise is cool.

‘Inferno’ and its

parallel universes

crush a lost victim.

A body-swap, with

the Doctor and the Master.

This is quite funny.

Attempted horror

With the UNIT family

And kiddified prose.

Explosively great.

The Doctor, Jo and Mike Yates

Meet Jackie Tyler.

History-changing

With unclear writing, but it’s

Thoughtful and funny.

Magrs is great, of course.

Likeable, down-to-earth kids

Find a metal friend.

Nothing special, but

I like Pertwee’s costume and

the Ice Warriors.

Eco-warriors

Can be wrong too, despite the

Doctor’s sympathies.

Incredible cast.

McCoy steals it, narrowly,

But the script’s shapeless.

Satanist horror,

Gatiss surprisingly strong,

But the ending fails.

Dumb, but pleasingly

Gruesome and giving its cast

Plenty to chew on.

Painfully stupid,

Muddy plot, bad director,

A struggle to watch.

Twenty years later,

A sequel no one asked for.

Stupid but okay.

Abstract and spooky,

The first semi-pro fan film.

John Levene meets ghosts.

Incredibly dull,

Cressman isn’t an actress

And nothing happens.

Miss Hawthorne in a

Nuclear research centre.

Silly and funny.

Joyfully in love

With crazed continuity

Paul Magrs makes me laugh.

I want to like it,

But, alas, it can’t survive

Hayman’s autocue.

An old lady in

A village, meeting legends.

I think it’s special.

Laugh-out-loud silly

But in a good way.  Olive

Fights supervillains.

Hard-nosed UNIT and

Authentic Season 7.

The fiction’s good too.

Beautiful artwork,

Some interesting short stories,

A lavish homage.

Surreal, but also

Far more sophisticated.

As if World’s grown up.

Mystical, eerie,

It’s more interesting than its

Parent TV show.

It’s shorter, dafter

and hugely entertaining.

Sometimes it’s superb.

Delgado’s fannual.

All hail our evil hero!

Loved the comic strip.

TV Comic’s most

Hilariously insane

Doctor Who stories.

Beautiful artwork

but middling adventures.

A handsome book, though.

Doctor Who’s the best

story here by miles, alas.

All the rest is dull.

Better than Countdown.

Less SF, stronger action…

But bad text stories.

Unfunny funnies.

The adventure strips are gone,

Except Doctor Who.

The Master’s army

Of hypnotised dinosaurs

And freshly laid eggs.

Publicity fluff

With Sladen, the theme music

And Dick Mills effects.

Big and serious.

Trevor Martin’s great, but there’s

a daft companion.

Non-Who short stories

Which are horror, not SF.

Really rather good.

Pantomime nonsense,

But fine if you accept that.

I enjoyed the songs.

It does its job, but

It’s generic.  Good actors:

Innocent and Miles.

Absolutely crazed,

But hence also memorable.

Fandom hated it.

Jon Pertwee appears

In his last role: a fan film.

It’s actually good.