NA #53 Return of the Living Dad

Return of the Living Dad by Kate Orman

In Brief: Bernice contacts The Doctor to help locate her long lost father. He turns up in 1983 rural England running a coffee-shop/half-way house for lost aliens.

If there can be a criticism made of Return of the Living Dad (cute pun but terrible title) it's that the book feels somewhat anti-climactic, both after the past few novels but as well in regards to how the story plays out of Bernice finding her Dad. However, I think it's fairly clear from early on that this sense of mild disappointment is intentional, Orman is a better writer than to just do the obvious for this sort of story. The reader expects, from the initial set-up as Benny and Jason discover clues to her father's whereabouts (which turn out to be 1983 England), for the climax to be his discovery and a grand emotional reunion to result. Instead he's found by somewhere around page 70 and the rest of the book deals with the after-math.

It turns out that rather than fleeing from a space-battle as thought his ship was caught in a temporal-storm and ended up on Earth in 1963. So for the past 20 years Isaac Summerfield and his remaining crew have been helping various stranded aliens to return home, many times after their planned invasion of the Earth has been thwarted by The Doctor. What is amusing is that while in 1996 this was an amusing idea, reading it 15 years later is seeing a Torchwood or The Sarah Jane Adventures in protoplasmic form. I have to wonder if Russell T Davies read Return of the Living Dad back in the day and the idea germinated in his head until he had to think of a format for a Doctor Who spin-off.

The book does a surprising thing in having Benny (with Jason) come back for a "cameo" so soon after her grand departure. While the same was done with Ace earlier in the series (which IMHO was a bad decision) here it's done in a much subtler way, with Bernice having no ulterior motives or desire to continue her travels. In fact she realises that she's moved on from her "adventuring" days as she wants to have enough stability to start a family, yet at the same time still be in touch with The Doctor. In 1996 this was a departure from anything before, as "companions" (terrible term) just never came back once they left. Of course now we're in the days of regular reappearances from Rose/Martha/Donna/Jack and most recently The Ponds, but prior having past characters reappear (other than for anniversary specials or if they're a Brigadier) was unheard of.

I felt that this book is what Happy Endings should have been, a summation of where the New Adventures has come over 5 years while at the same time looking forward but without the indulgence. The earlier book was too wrapped up in being too silly and frothy, which made it rather an unsatisfying read. Orman does a better job here of mixing the comedy with the drama, while also setting up the rest of the series as we head towards the 7th Doctor's trip to San Francisco (here he is beginning to realise that he can't thwart death forever).

It's impressive to look back over the 50+ books and really see how the book series is the bridge between the show as it was from the 60-80s and what we have today. Doctor Who can't get away with *just* being a programme about seeing strange places, it needs to show how these places impact them. This is reinforced in Return of the Living Dad as Bernice has to cope with some harsh truths about her father, and also as Roz and Chris realise their feelings for one another.

Yes, there's more to the book than just people wandering around being introspective, various bits of plot involve a military base kidnapping aliens, secret codes to nuclear missiles and a time-ghost. But the book is really *about* these stories, but instead on how the regular characters react to them. And that's probably the biggest impact that the New Adventures had to the world of Doctor Who, they demonstrated that you *can* have you cake and eat it in combining voyages to distant lands with proper drama and character arcs as we'd see 9 years later.

So overall Return of the Living Dad is a good book, although one which is better for what it does in regards to the continuing narrative rather than on its own. It's a little too loose and meandering to be called great, but as a "small" story that exists to increase character development (and also to set-up the eventual run of Doctor-Less Benny-centred New Adventures) it's very good.

Although it does get a few demerits for the meta-textual jokes (including Simpsons references and Internet humour), but then it was the 1990s...