Review: So much talent, so utterly wasted.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 02 18, 2013
I was really excited to see Colfer's name on a Doctor Who book and then a bit disappointed to realize he'd be writing the First Doctor. A guy like Colfer, with his Douglas Adams-style sense of humor was wasted by not pairing him with the Fourth Doctor.Beyond that, the e-book Colfer wrote represents the work of a man who, it seems, has never watched "An Unearthly Child" before setting his story before it. If he had, he'd recognize that it took the Doctor almost two years before becoming a heroic character, originally preferring to hide in the shadows, running from something mysterious and never fully explained in-series. The Doctor presented here is a fusion of the Fourth and the Tenth, with none of the age or presence of Hartnell's version of the character.The fact that this story, set before the TARDIS chameleon circuit is broken, never once mentioned the current shape of the TARDIS is just one of a myriad of missed opportunities.In addition, the massive hand-shaped retcon within this adventure is just absolutely ridiculous and serves no purpose as part of a 50th anniversary celebratory story other than as a permanent footnote: a forced, arrogant graft onto canon.As a starting point, this does not bode well for the other ten stories...