In Review: Doctor Who: The Road to the Thirteenth Doctor #2: The Eleventh Doctor

Synopsis: The Eleventh Doctor and Alice visit 19th Century San Francisco, but there’s one problem – it’s full of robots! Do they come in peace? Or does their displacement in time signal something sinister?

Review: The second issue of adventures in this Road To series sees the 11th Doctor and his companion Alice visit 19th Century San Francisco where they encounter some very strange changes.

The story

The main story for this issue sees the Doctor and Alice encountering some Robots, which look very ahead of their time and seem to be the hight of fashion amongst the upper classes of San Francisco. As the duo investigate they finally come to the realization that these robots, which look like something you’d see in a steampunk story are the property of an Alien who has been looking for a new home.

As single issue stories go. This is pretty good and fairly basic in that there isn’t really any threads left dangling by the end. I really liked Pasquale Quagliano’s design for the robots and the alien design was also really good.

James Peaty’s writing for the Doctor is consistent and felt very much in keeping with how a typical Matt Smith adventure would play out.

The issue also has a second short story from Jody Houser, Rachael Stott, and Enrica Angiolini. This story, which is only a couple of pages long sees the 11th Doctor having to deal with the slow pace of human living. It also seems to be set during the episode ‘The Power Of Three’, which was written by incoming showrunner Chris Chibnall and was among the last stories to feature Amy and Rory.

This writing team, which will be writing the comic book adventures of the 13th Doctor seemed to capture Matt Smiths character really, really well, which can only be hopeful for future issues as the comics move forward with Jody Whitakers 13th Doctor.

Overall

Overall. I really enjoyed this issue. The stories were not the best, but certainly weren’t the worst you’d read either. Afterall you can only do so much for a one-shot, and this pretty much shows off what can be done, but you really do find yourself wanting more.