Hogan Reviews

The War Doctor Begins, um, ends with “Exit Strategy” and with it the story of sort-of companion Case. Thankfully the odd and tragic story is brought to a good conclusion that also features another good look into the relationship between the War Doctor and his earlier selves, more specifically his previous self. Let’s take a look!

The story shows us two obvious outcomes from the end of the previous story: Tamasan (Adele Anderson) tells The Doctor (Jonathan Carley) that given how much Case has “levelled up”, so to speak, she has been chosen to be destroyed by the War Council, something The Doctor knew was coming and requests to deal with her himself; and Case (Ajjaz Awad) is brought before the Dalek Emperor who is disgusted with her non-Dalek form and wants the Time Strategist to take “it” away and “fix it”. As Case is taken to the Time Strategist’s hidden lab The Doctor searches the Matrix for a way to find Case and finds a Time Lord called “The Nurse” (David Monteith) who crosses paths with Case in the near future. The Doctor meets the Nurse at an earlier point in time and is reminded (via flashback!) that his younger self (Paul McGann) had saved him when he was buried under a building. The Doctor notices The Nurse’s old fashioned cybernetic legs before leaving, then reappears at a later point in The Nurse’s timeline and not only delivers medical supplies but gives his cybernetics “a self-repairing upgrade”.

The Doctor leaves and shortly after The Nurse is captured when Daleks break into his ship and he’s carted off to see the Time Strategist. At the Strategists lab we see The Nurse is forced to help injured Daleks and soon is forced to run a complete diagnostic on Case, whose mish-mash of human, Dalek and Time Lord physiology is causing her body to burn up what’s left of the fleshy parts. The Doctor breaks through the Time Strategist’s barriers and says he was coming to help Case and soon gets in contact with The Nurse via the implant he gave him, which lets the Nurse know that The Doctor knew what would happen to him and let him get captured anyway so he could find the Strategist’s lab. That being said, The Doctor admits he hadn’t done that bit yet, as thanks to the Time War he’s breaking the rules by crossing his own timeline. While his “attack” is on-going he can’t land and help but he tells the Nurse that he has arranged other help to arrive instead…

It’s a good story with a fun twist towards the end. The Nurse is a good Doctor analogue that clearly hurts The Doctor in his current form, and Case’s eventual end is fitting and well written.

The Continuity:

A look at possibly the final great War Doctor painted cover… (as in it looks like at least the next one will be altered photos, not that the next one will look crap…)

Not much, again beyond familiar Time War characters and themes. Since its her last appearance I’ll mention that Case first appeared in “Consequences” from the Warbringer set, then reappeared as a recurring character from “A Mother’s Love” in the Comrades-in-Arms set to now. Not a bad run given the War Doctor isn’t supposed to have had any real companions, though I guess she wasn’t what you’d call a traditional companion…

Overall Thoughts:

“Exit Strategy” was a great end to Case’s story, suitably bittersweet with some great Doctor – War Doctor stuff thrown in as well (all of which you’ll have to read about in the spoiler section!) Overall I felt “Enemy Mine” was a good way for the “Begins” set of stories to go out on as it was very much a “now his adventures continue” kind of ending, which thankfully we know is the case as a new younger War Doctor story is coming out in a couple of months!

While The Nurse is trying to stabilize Case The Doctor (still Paul McGann!) arrives and begins to take over proceedings, reviving Case and saying hello to the Nurse before beginning to help his future self’s “friend”. Case rebels and threatens to kill The Doctor so he allows her to contact the Emperor and tell him she’s captured The Doctor, only for the Time Strategist’s hidden plans to be revealed to the Dalek head honcho instead. As the Emperor begins to plan to attack the Strategist’s lab for his traitorous actions Case is kicked out of the Dalek pathweb as a failed experiment, showing her what the Daleks truly think of her, just as The Doctor planned. The War Doctor boasts about his plan to the Time Strategist and then is called by The Doctor, to his surprise, who criticizes his “planting a bug in a crippled man’s legs” plan and claims to be about to help both the Nurse and Case. The War Doctor says the Nurse is too far gone, which The Doctor agrees but says he “has to try” before being told by his future self to set the lab to blow. The Doctor is unable to save The Nurse but he does run off with a now convinced Case, who on the way to the TARDIS realises her cybernetics aren’t actually cybernetic at all any more and her real limbs have returned, much to her delight.

As you’ve probably guessed by now this isn’t reality and in fact The War Doctor has given Case a program based off of his previous self to ease her consciousness, delivered via The Nurse’s implant all to give her a happy ending while her body dies on the station (alongside The Nurse, sadly. He was a good character for a bit there!) Due to Case and the Nurse’s cybernetics being connected to the Dalek pathweb the whole thing seems real to them, and The Doctor’s interference with the Strategist’s plans was real as well, as is the self-destruct sequence that takes out the lab and, well, clearly not the Dalek Time Strategist, let’s face it. The War Doctor gets one more call from “The Doctor”, who has figured out what he is and promises his real self that he’ll stay with Case until the end. The War Doctor thanks his sort-of self before heading back out onto the battlefield…