The novel sees the Doctor
and Chris go to 1950s London where at a mental asylum a Professor Moriah has
failed experiments of sentient mannequins, made of genetically altered human flesh,
becoming therapists as a way to get his dead wife back, adapting themselves to
what patients require to heal. There is
a sinister empty black cab prowling the streets and eating people, the Doctor
is off to help a young man go through the grief of losing his partner, Chris is
hooking up with a woman at a bar, and Peri Brown makes her way back to Earth to
discover what happened to the first king of Kron’Tep. Yeah this novel juggles
quite a bit in terms of plot and easily could have fallen flat if Jones wasn’t
able to find a good balance between the many plotlines. Jones however actually manages to accomplish
it as the novel serves as a catharsis for the death of Roz.
Chris has the most
outward reaction to Roz’s death as from the get go of the novel he is trying to
bottle up his feelings, until the Doctor manipulates him into going to a
bar. The bar run by Tilda “Mother” Jupp,
is where he meets Patsy, a woman looking for love after the death of her
husband. They form a connection because
of how compatible they are, but as Chris isn’t allowed to be happy they get
torn apart by the end of the novel. It’s
because of the way they’re torn apart that Chris is allowed to move forward
from Roz’s death which comes across well.
Jones writes Chris as emotionally damaged and in denial about his
feelings for Roz as they didn’t get their happily ever after moment. Patsy is also an interesting character as the
way Jones writes her may feel annoying, but it is purposefully so as to leave
hints to the big twist at the end of the novel which really does feel really
good. Tilda Jupp is also a character who
while holding a lot of the dramatic weight in the novel, has a lot of funny
moments and things that makes her feel like comic relief. She’s essentially a diva in charge of a
little cabaret, surrounded by friends, getting drunk, and caring for
people. She’s got the best bits of the
book which really helps sell the story to the audience as you can believe this
woman is holding a little club with parties every night for people.
The Doctor gets his own
little plotline to follow as he does a lot of the investigating and with that
we actually get to see him emote. While
the Doctor was emotionally attached to Benny, Roz was his equal and now to deal
with it he is getting his nose dirty without having a plan. He gets wrapped up with gangsters who have
been threatening closeted gay Jack Bartlett and of course the Doctor cannot
stand for this. He sees the injustice
that they are blackmailing him with, a grainy photo that could easily be
explained away as a misunderstanding, and decides for himself that he’s got to
put a stop to it. He also gets slapped
by Peri, which is the first real time he has been held accountable for the fate
of one of his companions. Peri has had a
very bad marriage and waited for the Doctor to come rescue him, but no he was
too busy becoming Time’s Champion to even care what happened to Peri. While the time travel nonsense involved in
Peri’s fate makes there be several versions of the character, this one is
hardened and ready for action, but her fate in the novel is best left up to the
reader to discover. I’ll say no more
except that Peri does cause the only problem in the novel as she gets several
interludes that really don’t go anywhere interesting and Jones tries to keep us
in mystery, but the mystery really doesn’t work when he credits her as Queen
Gilliam. You know Gilliam as in
Perpigillium Brown. Yeah it’s an obvious
shortening of Peri’s full name and the mystery is given up right on the first
page.
To summarize, Bad Therapy is only bad for the villains
of the story as it provides therapy for its characters all through a story that
feels like Classic Doctor Who. Matthew
Jones does a great job writing this novel and should be commended for putting
so much into it and getting such a good story out the first time around. The characters are interesting, the ideas are
puzzling, and there isn’t really a wasted page apart from the weird mystery
around Peri and her fate which doesn’t work.
Now we can get to the ending of the New Adventures and of course see
where the Doctor can possibly go from here.
90/100
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