NA #17 Birthright

Birthright by Nigel Robinson

In Brief: Bernice has found herself trapped in 1909 London struggling to deal with a killer (and long dresses) while Ace is stuck on a distant planet ruled by the insectoid Charrl. The Doctor (and the Tardis) are nowhere to be found...

First off I can now forget the pain of the awful Shadowmind since I found this to be very good read that helped raise my opinion about the series again. While it's not as envelope-pushing or mind-blowing as other NAs it's very entertaining. Also it's a much better effort than Robinson's earlier Timewyrm: Apocalypse. The only negatives really are a rather poor climax (another virtual landscape and an ending that doesn't really resolve anything) and the author's over-love of 1960s continuity references (of course this was written back in the day when 1967's The Tomb of the Cybermen was the most awesome thing ever since a copy had then recently been rediscovered in Hong Kong). However these minor issues don't really get in the way, and the references to the past are actually made to work within the context of the plot.

One of the things that's been interesting in reading through so many of the New Adventures comparatively quickly (considering originally they were released every month or two) is seeing how the focus of the books has moved more and more away from the Doctor and onto his companions. I think this change was probably necessary in ensuring that the concept could work as books rather than TV. With a few hundred pages of material to fill you need to have interesting characters with depth. With the Doctor being "the alien" it would be too easy to lose all mystery about the character.

So the lion's share of Birthright is given over to Bernice as she's forced to cope with being flung from the Tardis into Edwardian London. However despite his not appearing the Doctor's presence is felt throughout with little clues and coincidences that help Benny. We get the feeling that the events of the book have been set up for Bernice to figure out as some sort of test.

Also the Doctor is busy dealing with the plot of the next book, Iceberg.

It's an interesting idea that hopefully will be brought into the series proper at some point, especially since we now regularly get those "Oh God we can't manage to film everything in time!" Doctor-free episodes every so often. Actually for some reason those often turn out to be season-highlights ("Turn Left" for instance actually made the character of Donna tolerable...)

So while having a Doctor-free novel could have been a disaster (I mean the series is called *Doctor* Who after all) it instead cements Benny as the central character at this point in the series. With her travelling with such a mysterious and alien Doctor as well as a bloodthirsty-soldier version of Ace she really becomes the reader's identification figure. I've often found that Doctor Who, regardless of its medium, really depends on its regulars to keep the viewer/reader's interest. With such a (normally) small regular cast it's not like other programmes that have half-a-dozen characters to choose from if we don't like one. So if the regulars don't work then it can be a struggle to maintain interest. Proof of that can be found in the 1980s when (as one of many problems) there seemed to really be no one on screen that the audience could take some interest in. Gone were the days of Sarah Jane, Jamie, Jo, or even Leela and instead we had the horror of Tegan, Peri and Mel.

That's why Ace in 1987 was so important, she was practically the first truly likeable regular the show had seen since at least the late 70s.

While these characters were never given the depth of Rose or Amy at least the best of them were "likeable".

So with Birthright temporarily taking the Doctor out of the picture and instead concentrating on Bernice we get a really good chance to get to know her. While Ace does show up later on her contribution is small which I think shows how limited that character had really become since coming back into the series (she's really just there to beat people up/shoot them). Also she's now become so paranoid and bitter towards the Doctor's manipulations that she's almost a caricature.

So to sum up while it's not spectacular, Birthright is a very solid entry in the series that helps bring the series "back to earth" after what seems to be a very long time (while I'm all for trying new things it is nice to get back to basics every so often).

Or maybe I just have a soft-spot for Victoriana in Who, for some reason the trappings of the 19th-century always seem to compliment the series well.