By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Doctor Who has been for 60 years a canvas for every type of story you can and cannot think of but rarely has it dipped into pure horror. In the Doctor Who Monthly 54 and 55. Written by Steve Parkhouse and drawn by Dave Gibbons, it is one of those rare stories that would have to be toned down for television. Anything else that has come close like the Two Doctors has come in for criticism about being too violent for children. But adults underestimate kids sneakiness and watch things they should not be.
The Doctor arrives alone on a seemingly deserted subway platform in an undetermined time and place. It is covered with litter and graffiti and gives off a gloomy aura. Suddenly the Doctor finds himself under attack from cannibalistic humans. While the show has dealt with horror this is firmly in the genre where Mad Max, Doomsday and The last of Us are at home. Humanity has been reduced to the level of murderous scavengers who kill and do anything to survive. To think we as civilised beings falling to this level is unsettling and scary. Like those beings we would kill our friends for a scrap of bread or do anything to have the safety of a community in this nightmare landscape.
These cannibals use bones for weapons as well as blades, axes, hunting knives, anything to mutilate and carve their kill there and then. Some of them have devolved and look misshapen, the result of probably the radiation and toxic atmosphere that has caused birth defects. This revokes Wrong Turn and the Hills Have Eyes mutants. They are not to be reasoned with, something that is alien to the Doctor.
All he can do is run for his life in a landscape that wants to murder him and have him for dinner….literally. Their leader is called the Chief, a madman that has a chainsaw for an arm and his sniffer dog is an old man on all fours on a leash and harness. This is R rated stuff and would not have made it to television. When you watch movies like Doomsday where a virus has decimated the UK but there are survivors in Scotland that mirror the cannibals in End of the Line. In that movie they tied Sean Pertwee’s character to the front of a tank and burned him alive and started feasting on him there and then. This echoes the scene where the Chief is electrocuted. His minions comment they love a roast and how good he smells before feeding. This is scary stuff as the Doctor is on the verge of being sliced apart and fed on. No regeneration will save him this time. If ever a concept would send a kid behind the sofa then this is it.
In the seventh Doctor story Paradise Towers, Mel is almost murdered by two old cannibalistic pensioners. Even then it was played down as not to be OTT despite the image of one of them being eaten by a trash disposal unit with only her legs showing. What is shown in this comic strip is far more graphic. We see two survivors stomachs being ripped open by the Chief, something that would not make it on screen.
However rescue comes in the form of Angel, a blond girl ace fighter of the Guardian Angels. She is part of a few survivors including leader Sonny and the Engineer. Sonny and Angel are romantically involved and where there is love there is hope right?
The Engineer is an old man who has figured a way out of the city but is very ill. It is a combination of radiation and malnutrition. He knows there is a place called countryside where they can live free from the poisons and cannibals. All he needs to do is get the train moving. It is easy to picture Sonny and Angel starting a family along with the other survivors once they are free from the city.
The Doctor succeeds in getting the train moving but the Chief and his hordes attack. In the battle he tries to kill the Doctor for himself but hits electrical cables frying him on the spot. He suddenly becomes dinner as they are excited at the prospect of a roast dinner. Separated from the others, the Doctor stumbles upon the Tardis and takes off. As we know the Doctor keeps running, never looking back.
This time however he needs to know if the Engineer achieved his dream of living free in the countryside. He pilots the Tardis To land outside the city where he is dismayed to see a wasteland with no indication of any form of lush countryside.
He waits patiently on the platform for a long time until it starts raining. Concerned about the radiation effect in the droplets, the Doctor pauses at the Tardis door. He knows they are not coming and that they probably were killed in the attack. With a final look at the poison wasteland, he ponders that it is probably for the best. It is a bleak day when even the Doctor decides that death potentially at the hands of cannibals is preferable to finding sanctuary has been reduced to ash.
It’s a very somber end to the story and a stark reminder that the Doctor doesn’t always win. The television fourth Doctor would stride in to any situation and save the day no matter how dire the situation. He brings hope and light but there are some places in the universe that not even he can light up.
A great story that highlights that if we fall from civilisation it may be too far to ever come back again. A multilayered gem from Steve Parkhouse.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 