A review by scottishvix
Doctor Who: Time of Your Life by Steve Lyons
2.0
There were some great ideas in this book but it just doesn't come together well.
Forgetting about the fact that The Evils of Television had already been done during the Sixth Doctor's era (and if you're going to repeat an idea it's better not to keep reminding us of it) there were far too many disparate plot strands and interchangeable characters to keep track of. It took far too long for the plot to really start so by the time it actually gets off the ground the reader just wants to get to the conclusion. Characters are thrown in randomly and there are just so many of them that when they begin to die off you just don't care.
Lyons would have done much better to cut it all down. Get the Doctor off the planet and onto the station more quickly, cut down the cast considerably so you can focus on the gems he does have (Giselle, Kerston and the Mary Whitehouse analog particularly). Get rid of the fans campaigning for the return of their favourite sci-fi time travel show (by making them so annoying and moronic you just annoy the readers, who at the time this was written would have been the fans), the drunken soap actor whose life is falling apart, the second Marston sphere (two of the same thing causing the same peril? Really?) and bloody Bloodsoak Bunny.
Like I said, there were some great ideas and interesting characters here that could have worked in a more streamlined novel. But with too much going on they get lost in the noise.
Forgetting about the fact that The Evils of Television had already been done during the Sixth Doctor's era (and if you're going to repeat an idea it's better not to keep reminding us of it) there were far too many disparate plot strands and interchangeable characters to keep track of. It took far too long for the plot to really start so by the time it actually gets off the ground the reader just wants to get to the conclusion. Characters are thrown in randomly and there are just so many of them that when they begin to die off you just don't care.
Lyons would have done much better to cut it all down. Get the Doctor off the planet and onto the station more quickly, cut down the cast considerably so you can focus on the gems he does have (Giselle, Kerston and the Mary Whitehouse analog particularly). Get rid of the fans campaigning for the return of their favourite sci-fi time travel show (by making them so annoying and moronic you just annoy the readers, who at the time this was written would have been the fans), the drunken soap actor whose life is falling apart, the second Marston sphere (two of the same thing causing the same peril? Really?) and bloody Bloodsoak Bunny.
Like I said, there were some great ideas and interesting characters here that could have worked in a more streamlined novel. But with too much going on they get lost in the noise.