The Doctor Saves the Day—16 Times

by Theresa Gauthier

Doctor Who: Adventures in Lockdown

I didn’t intend to review another short story collection so soon—and another Doctor Who short story collection to boot—but the book was a delightful diversion. Not to review it just because I’d already reviewed something similar—well, it didn’t seem a good enough reason.

Adventures in Lockdown is a collection of sixteen short stories compiled from several sources. Seven of the stories were first published on the official Doctor Who website as part of Chris Chibnall’s lockdown initiative. Six were part of the Emily Cook’s Doctor Who: Lockdown! Series of watch-alongs, and the final three stories were written especially for this book.

Doctor Who short stories are not a new thing. I read many pre-reboot when there were but 7 and then 8 Doctors. In general, a collection would have had one story for each Doctor. It’s a handy—and fair—arrangement. (One that the last collection I reviewed seemed to sidestep by using the Fifth Doctor’s companions and not the Fifth Doctor himself in one story, while using the Tenth Doctor’s companion, Rose, with Ten’s duplicate, now living with Rose in the parallel universe. These are wonderful stories, but I did miss Five and Ten.

During lockdown in 2020, Chris Chibnall’s lockdown initiative introduced a series of new stories on the official Doctor Who website in order to deal with the situation and to encourage others—and I imagine to appease fans who had to wait far longer for the next Doctor Who stories.

Emily Cook’s lockdown watch-alongs—using social media as a tool to keep fans connected while rewatching Doctor Who—became a vital coping tool and lasted well beyond lockdown.

The first story in the book—A Message from the Doctor—is the dialogue from a short video posted to the official website and featuring Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor advising people on how to Keep Calm and Carry On in true Doctor Who Fashion. The video is available here. There are other similar relevant videos here and here.

The rest of the stories, written by Chris Chibnall, Steven Moffat, Russell T. Davies, Neil Gaiman, Mark Gatiss, Paul Cornell, Pete McTighe, and Joy Wilkinson, show us perspectives we don’t get from the series. 

What was going through the Doctor’s mind as she fell through the sky after her regeneration from 12 to 13? What about the regeneration of the 8^th Doctor? Want a glimpse of Rory and Amy’s lives after they stopped traveling with the Doctor? How long can a living entity be trapped in a mirror? What would the 13^th Doctor and her Fam do if they had to stay in one place—one room—for three weeks?

These authors are masters of the short story using it to make us laugh, to make us think, to reassure. True to form, the characters are our familiar friends, but the stories are not restricted to what can be depicted on screen. Instead, anything goes. 

The stories are hopeful because that’s what was—is still—needed. That’s what they were created to do. Spreading hope across the Doctor Who Universe and revealing things it may not have occurred to us to wonder.

I’ve reread pieces of the book again just for the purpose or writing this review, and to be honest, even though I’d read it all before, I had a hard time putting it down. That’s one of the best things about short stories. It’s so easy to get caught up in them, and the length of the tales allows for (almost) instant gratification.