A review by thoroughlymodernreviewer
Doctor Who: The Spear of Destiny by Marcus Sedgwick
4.5
Of the three I’ve read so far, this one’s easily the best. It’s the first of the bunch that’s made good use of the relatively short page count, getting to the point quickly enough that it actually has a bit of time to play around with its ideas. This story meshes the Third Doctor and Jo Grant with Norse mythology. And, put simply, if “The Girl Who Died” was half as fun as this story was, we’d all remember that episode far more fondly than we do.
Pacing continues to be a bit of a challenge for these short stories. Once again, the premise is good enough to support an entire 45-minute episode - if not more. But Sedgwick has to rush through some of the most fun stuff to leave enough time for to properly explore the bigger ideas. And to be fair, I think he finds the best balance so far. But it’s easy to see how a longer story could’ve been even more fun. That being said, the plot’s great, Sedgwick captures the Third Doctor and Jo’s voices and dynamic perfectly, and the inclusion of a Villain I Won’t Spoil proves as delightful as you’d hope it would be.
All in all, a really solid outing and my favorite so far.
Pacing continues to be a bit of a challenge for these short stories. Once again, the premise is good enough to support an entire 45-minute episode - if not more. But Sedgwick has to rush through some of the most fun stuff to leave enough time for to properly explore the bigger ideas. And to be fair, I think he finds the best balance so far. But it’s easy to see how a longer story could’ve been even more fun. That being said, the plot’s great, Sedgwick captures the Third Doctor and Jo’s voices and dynamic perfectly, and the inclusion of a Villain I Won’t Spoil proves as delightful as you’d hope it would be.
All in all, a really solid outing and my favorite so far.