The latest comic-book adventure for the Fifteenth Doctor, alongside his Season 2 companion Belinda Chandra, comes to a conclusion in Issue #4, and there will be readers who complain that it’s very much “just” a conclusion, in terms of the Doctor finally facing the Big Bad of the story, giving a speech, losing complete control of events and being surprised in a slightly heartwarming way, all within the space of what in TV would be a couple of simply-dressed sets.

But to give writer Dan Watters his due, within that tight space, he allows himself the panels to address a handful of the criticisms that readers may have had of issues #1-3 in a slick in-universe way, making the whole Prison Paradox arc feel at least a little more meaty and worthwhile than it might have done along the way.

Along the way, if you’re catching up, the Doctor got a gang together for a prison break of sorts from a Shadow Proclamation detention centre on the event horizon of a black hole.

Who’s Watching Who?

Meanwhile, the Warden of the prison goes totally tonto, kidnaps Belinda, occasionally threatens to kill her, but essentially waits for the Doctor to get to him while watching his exploits on a monitor. As you would do if you too were chronically bored of your life stuck on a no-escape prison full of the worst scum of the universe. After all, who doesn’t like to watch some Doctoring action to relieve the monotony of their day?

During the race to get to the Warden before he offs Belinda, the Doctor’s gang take… ahem… somewhat heavy casualties, to the point where by the start of Issue #4, there’s just the Doctor and a renegade member of the Slitheen family left. Each of the first three issues has been an exercise in “Which of the inevitable but in-character Doctor Who ways can we kill off someone who trusts the Doctor?” en route to the conflict with the Big Bad. 

But in Issue #4, there are a handful of lines that not only point this out and lay the consequences of his actions squarely at the Doctor’s feet, the losses are properly acknowledged, the nature of the journey and the seeming uselessness of his rescue of Belinda are both sharply pointed, and there’s a note of hope at the end that allows for that heartwarming sense of a story concluded effectively, without ever tipping over into outright squishy sentiment that devalues the deaths along the way.

So, to coin a phrase – that’s all right then?

Redeeming Qualities

Well, mostly, yes.

The Warden, who has been very much a tokenistic Big Bad throughout, doesn’t especially rise to anything greater than a shouty, almost cackling villain in the Soldeed-From-The-Horns-of-Nimon mould. The rescue is fundamentally naff, with elements of Time Crash and The Pandorica Opens welded together, along with a slight re-writing of Time Lord history that has them creating the first black holes, rather than, as has always been the way in The Lore, simply harnessing their power to give them the power of time travel (Thank you, Omega before you turned into a CGI Skeleton of Unusual Size). And there remains a sense of slight underwhelm in terms of the story-arc as a whole, though arguably that’s always going to be the case once you decide on a prison break as your main narrative thrust through a story.

But beyond that, there’s a solid Enlightenment-style moment of choice for Felik Slitheen, who only teamed up with the Doctor because of a memory of what happened to the rest of the clan in their Earth-based encounter with the Time Lord – which in fairness is enough to make anyone decide where they stand.

There’s the Doctor copping to his failure to keep annnnny of their other gang members alive till the end, which smacks of the Fifteenth Doctor’s trademark ownership of his own failures, foibles and fallibility. And there is a delicious twist in terms of where the Warden’s been hiding out all this time, which would, like the best of Doctor Who twists, have been obvious if you’d only thought about it earlier – but you don’t until it’s revealed, which makes the twist work well.

And while the vanquishing of the Big Bad is pedestrian, and goshamighty how he likes to prattle on about the inevitability of their crushing demise in the embrace of the black hole, the philosophical ending, where a Slitheen pirate takes responsibility for their actions and chooses a new path, is enough to redeem all the potential sag-shouldered sighing moments you’ll have had along the four-issue arc. 

The Pleasure of a Wednesday

You probably won’t ever punch the air in joy or triumph here, but you’re invited at the end to take The Prison Paradox to your heart like a quiet but well-beloved child of a story in the middle of a loud, fast, occasionally mystifying sequence of Season 2 adventures. A Wednesday, so to speak, in the middle of a run of constant Saturday nights.

And yes, friends of the Doctor’s die along the path of this particular Wednesday adventure, but there’s at least an ending that glimmers with unlikely, unpredictable hope, without ever coming right out and pressing a shiny red Reboot button.

Artwise, Sami Kivela and colourist Valentina Bianconi have had more to do in previous issues of the arc, but their talents together make this feel like one of the richest and most active of the four – admittedly, having a double gun-wielding Slitheen to focus on helps in that regard, but there’s a sense of urgency and action that they transmit to the panels which again is both necessary and remarkable when you consider the two-set nature of this issue’s story-capping action.

The Gift of Hope

So why invest your hard-won comic-book money in The Prison Paradox #4? Well, besides the fact that you’re a Doctor Who fan and therefore probably a joyous completist, so having just the first three issues would probably be a crime against the geekery at the core of your double hearts, the fourth issue does a lot of good work in terms of not only rounding off the story, but putting your qualms to rest in-universe, and in witty ways. 

It offers hope along a journey that has so far mostly been about friends of the Doctor dying, and while he dissolves into almost badly-comical ranting (see also, Max from Voyage of the Damned for a similarity of vibe), seeing the Warden get his eventual comeuppance makes you realise that you at least cared enough to nod approvingly when it happens, even if you can’t summon up an air-punch of, shall we say, shucks to give.

So Issue #4 is more than enough to make the journey of The Prison Paradox at least a little more than the sum of its parts, delivering that Wednesday the Doctor and Belinda barely had time to even contemplate in their on-screen adventures. 

What happens next? 

Who knows… But we’ll be here for it.

And so, very probably, will you. Tony Fyler

If you like what we do and want to help us keep the lights on and the podcasting mics warm, we’d appreciate it if you bought us a cup of coffee