Grimm Reality
by Simon Bucher-Jones and Kelly Hale

Publisher: BBC
ISBN: 0 563 53841 4

BASIC PLOT In the world of wishes, anything can come true. But the world has rules of its own and doesn't care that a certain Doctor Know-All and his friends don't know them. DOCTOR Eighth COMPANIONS Fitz and Anji MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT The planet Albert (aka The World of Wishes). PREPARATORY READING None. CONTINUITY REFERENCES Pg 71 "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows" Probably not an Iris reference. Pg 86 "I remember [...]white shapes in an orange-yellow sky" The Doctor remembers seeing a meteor shower with his father in the Telemovie. Pg 92 "He'd taken a life-saving course during his years as a corporate troubleshooter in the mid-eighties" Father Time. Pg 97 "Occasionally in the last hundred years or so, I've been taken this way" The Doctor's illness is presumably setting up something for the future. Pg 112 "There's a song about one in a windmill that Miranda liked." Father Time. Pg 134 "I think I threatened a man with his pet rat once." This might be a reference to The Visitation. Pg 135 "Creepy things silverfish. I once had a phobia about them, but Freud wouldn't tell me what I'd said under hypnosis." Silverfish are almost certainly the Cybermats. The Doctor meets Freud in a story in Missing Pieces. Pg 146 "On my father's side I am immortal, barring accidents" The Telemovie and The War Games. Pg 192 "The planet's called Albert?" The Doctor has a foreshadowing of this line in Father Time. Pg 196 "She'd seen him ride on Hitchemus." The Year of Intelligent Tigers. Pgs 213-214 "Should I have let the Kulan conquer Earth?" Escape Velocity. Pg 227 "Half the worlds in the Kursaal system." Kursaal. Pg 229 "Anji just knew he was the sort who'd give a car a pet name. Probably a girl's." The Doctor does indeed call his car Bessie. Pg 247 "So you wouldn't want your memories, then, Doctor?" All sorts of Earth arc stuff on this page. "You won't catch me with that old temptation." The City of the Dead. OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES None. NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES William Brok. Christina Morgenstern, although she's a cat by the story's end. Alex Volpe, although he's a fox by the story's end. CONTINUITY COCK-UPS None. PLUGGING THE HOLES [Fan-wank theorizing of how to fix continuity cock-ups] N/A FEATURED ALIEN RACES The vuim, insect like aliens. The Abanak, hippopotomus like aliens. All manner of fairytale dwarves, goblins, giants etc. FEATURED LOCATIONS The planet Albert, aka the World of Wishes, aka WHO one, c 2860. Human-Vium-Abanak ship orbiting the planet. IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith? It's rare to see such a sublime idea so ruined by lacklustre execution, but Grimm Reality takes a stunning central premise and commits the unforgivable crime of making it dull. A story about fairy tales, with the TARDIS crew part of the narrative should have been fantastic, but it's sunk by too much reliance on trying to explain everything scientifically and being too afraid to embrace its own potential. A real shame.