The Taint

Otherwise known as "The Readable One With the New Companion". Okay, I think we're all in agreement that "The Eight Doctors", which introduced Sam, was a bit of a mess. If you're still reading the series by this point you've either forgiven them for that transgression or just never read the book in the first place. But it did give us Samantha "Don't call me Samantha" Jones, in all her thinly sketched glory and the writers for the line have been trying to make some sense of her ever since. Some have done better than others, although in all fairness to the ones who botched it, they weren't given much to work with in the first place. She was more an idea for a character than a character herself, a real shame since the Doctor's companions from Virgin's New Adventures (Bernice Summerfield, Roz and Chris) were all memorable in their own right. After doing such a good job making those people work, the disappointment of Sam turning out to be so darn annoying was galling. So here, they try to rectify that goof by giving us a new companion in the form of Fitz, a swingin' lad from the sixties who's a bit on the selfish side (but with room to grow into being a hero), somewhat resourceful and able to bluff in an impressively swaggering fashion. From the start he's marked as companion material, mostly because he feels like the only person in the book who isn't wearing a shirt that says, "I'm Doomed". But what dooms them, you ask? Landing in the aforementioned 1960s England, the Doctor and Sam run across a doctor performing psychoanalytical experiments on a group of mentally ill patients who don't know each other but appear to be suffering from the same shared memories and nightmares, all of which are centering around a cave. A cave that the Doctor knows. This is one of those books where I wish they'd just dispatch with the apparent mandate that an alien menace has to be behind whatever weirdness is occuring. Because the early scenes when its clear that Something Weird is going on, scattered hints of memory, strange reactions, an ever-growing atmosphere of dread. It's not Gothic and its certainly not Lovecraftian but it gets the job done and everyone goes through their paces well. Fitz and Sam have a nice repartee going, the Doctor is sort of playing detective, the novel isn't shying away from the cost of trying to live with a mental illness or the debate about their rights in society, it all starts to shape up rather nicely. Oh, but then we have to go into science-fiction again. When the explanation does come, as we know it must, it involves aliens and long-forgotten alien experiments/doomsday weapon and robots and what was once creepy and skewed now becomes Just Another Doctor Who Episode, where the resolution depends more on the Doctor rigging up something technobabblish and it all feels rather drab and rote. It doesn't help that the actual explanation for all the hoopla feels a little overcomplicated. So the ending and the climax fall a li

this is a great story for the doctor's new companion Fitz Kriener. it takes place in the 1960's in a weird mental hospital. In the end Fitz joins the Doctor and Sam in their adventures though time and space!!!It has a mix of mind trips,chases etc. It is a classic story !!A must for fans of this series or sci-fi in general!!!

This is a very great story! It has lots of different aspects that was never imployed in the origianl tv series like full blown emotion, gory violence, and a totally different companion! I recommend this to anyone who loves Dr.Who or just loves a good sci-fi story!