A review by chicafrom3
Doctor Who: Independence Day by Peter Darvill-Evans

dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

The Seventh Doctor and Ace return to a planetary system the Doctor visited a long time ago to find that things have gone terribly wrong, and get caught up in a revolution. The premise is promising - the Second Doctor and Jamie accidentally interfere with the development of two colony planets, and the Seventh Doctor and Ace must help set things right - but things rapidly go downhill. Ace spends most of the book brainwashed, enslaved, and being leered at and groped (thus continuing the PDA's tradition of sexually menacing companions), while the Doctor never seems to figure out what's going on or what he should do about it - which would be perfectly good characterization for some incarnations, but this is post-Survival Seven. There's a lot of page time spent on how awful the fate of the brainwashed slaves is and how terribly they're treated and how they're fully aware of everything just unable to fight back etc., a plot line which is resolved with "well I guess they're just like that now" and one of our main characters committing murder-suicide. It's just all very remorselessly bleak misery porn without solid characterization or worldbuilding to balance it out.